IN  THESE  LATTER  DAYS 


COMPLETE  WORKS 

WEST  AMERICAN  SERIES  OF  HISTORIES 

RESOURCES  OF  MEXICO 

CHRONICLES  OF  THE  BUILDERS 

THE  BOOK  OF  THE  FAIR 

THE  BOOK  OF  WEALTH 

THE  NEW  PACIFIC 

POPULAR  HISTORY  OF  MEXICO 

LITERARY  INDUSTRIES 

RETROSPECTION 
IN  THESE  LATTER  DAYS 


IN  THESE  LATTER  DAYS 


BY 
HUBERT  HOWE  BANCROFT 


SECOND  EDITION  REVISED 


CHICAGO 

THE  BLAKELY-OSWALD  COMPANY,  PUBLISHERS 

1918 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I  A  PROBLEM  IN  EVOLUTION 

II  APOCALYPTIC 

III  INFELICITIES  OF  POSSESSION 

IV  GERMANY  AND  JAPAN 

V  THE  STILL  SMALL  VOICE 

VI  LIFE'S  COMPLEX  WAYS 

VII  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  LYING 

VIII  CHINA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES 

IX  THE  AUTOCRACY  OF  LABOR 

X  MUNICIPAL  RULE  AND  MISRULE 

XI  THE  DECLINATION  OF  LAW 

XII  FALLACIES  AND  FANTASIES 

XIII  THE  ECONOMICS  OF  EDUCATION 

XIV  THE  MYSTERIOUS  HISTORY  OF  THE  SPIRIT  CREATION 
XV  SPIRITUAL  AND  RATIONAL  DEVELOPMENT 

XVI  AB  Ovo 

XVII  As  OTHERS  SEE  Us 

XVIII  SPIRIT  WORSHIP  OF  TO-DAY 

XIX  THE  NEW  RELIGION 

XX  THE  WAR  IN  EUROPE 

XXI  CRYSTALLIZED  CIVILIZATION 

XXII  WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE  AT  SAN 

FRANCISCO  BAY? 

XXIII  REVIVAL  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


OBITER  DICTUM 

The  first  edition  of  this  book  was  written  and  sent  to 
press  prior  to  the  declaration  of  war  on  Germany.  In  this 
later  edition  but  little  revision  was  found  necessary.  Con 
ditions  may  change  but  facts  remain.  What  is  once  true 
is  always  true.  Subsequent  events  however  may  profitably 
be  brought  forward  to  elucidate  or  more  firmly  establish 
facts  previously  presented.  In  the  rapid  evolution  of  im 
portant  events  colors  may  fade  or  deepen  upon  the  canvas, 
but  the  fundamentals  of  history  are  found  in  every  day's 
doings,  from  which  there  is  no  appeal.  Even  in  this  whirli 
gig  of  progress  we  can  safely  discern  how  far  astray  are 
certain  forced  or  fanatical  views  regarding  some  of  the 
most  important  issues  which  have  yet  arisen  in  the  brief 
life  of  our  Republic.  Obviously  a  knowledge  of  the  past 
is  necessary  properly  to  understand  the  present  or  fore 
cast  the  future. 

Three  years  ago,  in  his  Modern  Fallacies,  while  the  cry 
was  "peace  at  any  price,"  and  a  president  was  later  elected 
"because  he  kept  us  out  of  war,"  the  author  wrote,  "Better 
the  United  States  should  join  the  Allies  than  that  Germany 
should  win."  He  said  also,  then  as  now,  Beware  of  Nip 
pon  ;  beware  of  breeding  Japanese  in  America  for  Ameri 
can  citizenship ;  safeguard  China ;  hold  the  Pacific ;  elevate 
public  morality;  purify  government, — in  a  word  Ameri 
canize  America,  and  this  ever  with  renewed  hope  thanking 
God  for  that  modicum  of  pure  patriotism  in  our  midst 
ready  to  fight  for  the  honor  and  integrity  of  the  nation. 

The  author  begs  leave  here  to  thank  his  friends  for  the 
many  kind  words  of  approbation  and  encouragement  he 
has  received  in  the  none  too  pleasant  task  of  pointing  out 
some  of  the  more  glaring  faults  that  retard  the  progress 
of  our  commonwealth. 

vii 


IN  THESE  LATTER  DAYS 


CHAPTER  I 

A  PROBLEM  IN  EVOLUTION 

WHAT  is  the  matter  with  the  United  States? 
We  grow  in  strength  but  not  in  grace ;  we  are 
intelligent  but  we  are  not  sensible. 

Our  legislators  lack  patriotism;  they  are  governed  by 
policy  rather  than  by  principle ;  our  electorate  lacks  inter 
est;  our  courts  of  law  lack  probity;  our  politicians  lack 
honesty. 

Though  apt  in  initiative  we  are  insincere  in  execution, 
and  are  farther  from  judicious  government  than  we  were 
a  hundred  years  ago. 

We  are  a  nation,  and  yet  not  a  nation;  we  are  wise 
yet  full  of  folly. 

We  boast  where  we  should  take  shame.  In  words  we 
exalt  our  standard  of  citizenship;  in  deeds  we  degrade  it. 
We  rate  ourselves  as  the  best  of  people  with  the  best  of 
governments ;  both  propositions  are  still  open  for  proof. 

We  seem  to  value  our  heritage  but  take  little  trouble 
to  guard  it.  We  are  evolving  with  some  degree  of  inten 
sity,  but  our  progress  is  downward  as  well  as  upward.  We 
claim  an  advance  in  knowledge  and  refinement,  but  our 
knowledge  is  mostly  siftings  and  our  refinement  subtlety. 
We  account  ourselves  civilized,  whereas  civilization  is  an 
eternity  of  evolution,  whose  end  is  ever  as  far  away  as 
the  beginning. 

i  1 


2  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

The  Pacific  ocean,  whose  waters  exceed  the  waters  of 
all  other  oceans,  whose  shores  with  tributary  lands  exceed 
in  area  and  potential  wealth  twice  the  area  and  natural 
wealth  of  the  United  States,  with  a  half  civilized  popula 
tion  less  all  told  than  our  own, — this  inherited  opportu 
nity,  this  superb  gift  and  obligation  Providence  lays  at 
our  feet,  and  we  spurn  it;  is  not  that  folly? 

And  all  the  while  we  are  sweeping  into  our  coffers  the 
world's  wealth  and  call  it  prosperity,  which  is  only  a  fer 
tilizer  for  the  seeds  of  decay  implanted  in  our  system. 

All  the  while  we  stand  amidst  the  wealthiest  and  might 
iest  of  earth,  and  none  so  poor  to  do  us  reverence. 

Our  moneyed  men  have  their  many  vaults  filled,  but 
they  want  more  vaults  filled ;  our  workingmen  are  the  best 
paid  in  the  world,  but  they  want  more  pay;  their  leaders 
have  indeed  found  an  easy  path  to  follow,  but  they  want 
the  whole  highway. 

All  the  world  has  gone  mad — except  ourselves;  and 
even  we  find  some  ways  of  playing  the  fool.  We  have 
a  good  enough  form  of  government  for  men  who  wish  to 
be  decent,  but  we  do  not  wish  to  be  decent.  We  put  bad 
men  in  office  and  then  expect  to  be  well  governed;  is  not 
that  folly?  We  have  in  our  care  a  huge  machine  of  ever 
increasing  power  and  intricacy,  of  ever  increasing  needs 
to  meet  ever  increasing  emergencies;  and  we  place  this 
juggernaut  car  of  progress,  of  which  we  are  once  the 
master  and  the  victim,  in  the  hands  of  men  to  control, 
to  conduct,  who  know  little  about  it  and  care  less,  men 
insincere,  incompetent,  vain,  self-seeking,  self-sufficient,  or 
even  knavish,  and  expect  to  be  safely  conducted  over 
mountain  and  morass  to  the  happy  hunting-ground  await 
ing  all  good  citizens  who  have  ever  performed  their  whole 
duty  as  such,  at  the  polls  and  elsewhere,  and  so  rest  con 
tent;  is  not  that  folly? 

For  so  it  has  been  said,  there  are  many  and  various 
kinds  of  fools  in  this  world.  The  German  kaiser  is  one 


A   PROBLEM   IN   EVOLUTION  3 

kind  of  fool,  Mexico  another,  the  United  States  of  America 
still  another. 

We  have  heavy  war  taxes  to  pay  when  we  have  no 
war.  We  see  mounting  higher  every  day  the  cost  of  living 
where  there  is  no  corresponding  increased  cost  of  produc 
tion.  We  should  be  deriving  some  adequate  profit  from 
the  Panama  canal  which  we  have  built,  but  we  are  not. 
Its  free  use,  equally  with  ourselves,  we  have  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  rival  nations,  therewith  the  more  easily  for 
them  to  despoil  our  commerce.  A  few  persons  like  the 
money-lenders,  the  munition  makers,  the  oil  and  steel  men, 
and  collateral  and  incidental  industries,  have  made  enor 
mous  gains,  but  except  the  farmers  the  people  at  large  are 
little  the  better  for  the  war,  while  the  government  has 
stirred  up  rivalries  and  brought  upon  the  nation  general 
contempt. 

We  have  turned  over  to  the  Japanese  our  most  price 
less  asset,  our  economic  supremacy  in  the  Pacific,  the 
greatest  and  most  opulent  of  oceans,  in  whose  develop 
ment  is  involved  not  only  our  own  destiny  but  the  destiny 
of  all  nations. 

After  driving  our  ships  and  sailors  from  the  sea,  the 
administration  childishly  complains  that  it  has  no  men 
for  the  navy;  and  this  while  our  wharves  are  congested 
with  goods  which  we  cannot  move,  and  the  demand  for 
able  seamen  to  man  our  warships  is  pressing  upon  us. 

We  cry  peace !  peace !  when  we  should  know  that  the 
worst  that  could  happen  to  us  and  to  the  world  would 
be  peace  without  victory. 

We  spend  millions  of  money  in  preparedness  to  do  noth 
ing,  to  be  triplicated  by  other  millions  in  doing  nothing. 

In  a  world  crisis  we  submit  to  wrongs  and  outrages 
on  every  side,  too  timid  to  present  a  front  even  of  ordi 
nary  manliness  and  independence. 

In   tolerating  the   exploiters   of  the   workingman   we 


4  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

harbor  an  imperium  in  imperio,  whom  to  placate  for  votes 
we  barter  our  integrity. 

We  treat  with  indifference  the  friendly  advances  of 
China,  and  thus  throw  away  an  opportunity  for  giving 
and  receiving  benefits  such  as  has  never  come  to  any  other 
nation,  the  insidious  eyes  of  Russia  and  Japan  viewing 
our  insane  attitude  with  satisfaction. 

We  tinker  our  tariff  to  the  confusion  of  commerce,  and 
by  a  suicidal  policy  bring  ruin  upon  our  merchants  and 
manufacturers,  and  give  advantage  to  our  competitors 
helpful  to  them  in  destroying  our  industries. 

Meat  trusts,  fish  trusts,  and  the  manipulation  of  farm 
products,  with  other  many  and  varied  sorts  of  imposition 
are  allowed  free  course  by  the  guardians  of  our  munici 
palities,  while  the  consumers  groan  under  the  infliction. 

We  settle  blackmail  not  by  chastising  the  blackmailers, 
but  by  submitting  to  their  demands. 

Women  become  men  in  extraneous  life  and  men  become 
women. 

While  serving  England  with  money,  munitions,  and 
provisions,  we  permit  her  to  place  a  bar  on  our  commerce. 

Without  reason,  without  necessity,  without  benefit  to 
anyone,  but  simply  from  the  inexperience  or  wanton  reck 
lessness  of  office  holders,  or  from  vanity,  or  for  self-ad 
vancement  fresh  burdens  are  constantly  laid  upon  the 
people.  Millions  of  money  are  wrongly  paid  in  pensions 
which  go  to  the  support  of  worthless  persons  in  idleness; 
also  in  printing,  in  uselessly  overloading  the  mails,  in 
creating  places  for  needy  retainers,  and  in  other  like 
indirect  ways. 

A  frivolous  and  fruitless  pretence  of  interfering  in 
Mexico  cost  the  nation  nearly  as  much  as  the  cost  of  the 
Panama  canal. 

But  with  all  this,  and  more,  as  the  seamy  side  of  our 
lives,  we  will  truthfully  acknowledge  that -we  have  much 
to  be  thankful  for,  all  in  fact  that  humanity  is  heir  to. 


A    PROBLEM   IN   EVOLUTION  5 

Nor  will  we  admit  that  we  are  wholly  unworthy  of  the 
good  gifts  of  the  gods. 

Wherefore,  in  view  of  the  situation,  and  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  we  do  not  claim  in  all  things  absolute  per 
fection,  may  we  not  ask  in  all  reasonableness  and  sin 
cerity,  What  is  the  matter  with  the  United  States?  Why, 
while  enjoying  the  blessings  of  peace,  while  having  at  our 
command  boundless  resources,  while  possessed  with  ordi 
nary  intelligence  tinctured  with  a  bit  of  patriotism,  why 
should  we  allow  such  a  muddle  to  be  made  of  things? 

The  easy  answer  comes,  We  do  not  attend  to  our  busi 
ness,  and  any  business  not  properly  attended  to,  as  we 
well  know,  will  go  to  the  dogs.  We  neglect  our  civic 
duties,  turn  to  our  farms  and  our  merchandise,  and  let 
the  republic  drift.  To  any  appeal  to  our  better  self  from 
the  true  well-wisher  of  the  commonwealth  we  answer,  ' '  Oh, 
yes!  That  is  so,"  and  go  our  way  with  our  eyes  upon  the 
ground  hunting  acorns.  For  which  criminal  indifference 
to  our  own  interests,  and  the  interests  of  others  we  get 
only  what  we  deserve. 

But  why  do  we  so? 

Call  it  pure  human  nature,  if  you  choose,  or  say  that 
we  are  so  obsessed  by  a  spirit  of  optimism  that  never  hav 
ing  suffered  any  great  calamity  we  will  not  see  it  coming 
until  it  is  fairly  upon  us.  Call  it  a  love  of  money,  which 
is  greater  than  our  love  of  liberty;  or  a  predilection  for 
a  little  brief  authority,  which  overrules  within  us  any  pre 
dilection  we  might  otherwise  have  for  sound  morality  and 
good  government. 

Once  we  would  have  said,  if  the  government  is  at  fault 
change  the  government;  if  the  office-holders  are  bad  put 
in  better  ones.  Then  we  remember  that  the  government 
is  the  people,  and  the  people  are  the  government,  and  that 
a  government  by  the  people,  for  the  people  is  what  we 
claim  to  be  and  are  not;  or  if  we  are  we  make  a  poor 
showing,  one  that  does  not  speak  very  well  for  the 


6  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

quality  of  the  people.  When  we  consider  the  sort  of  ma 
terial  from  which  we  make  voters  at  elections,  ignorant 
aliens  from  Europe;  Africans,  lately  manumitted  slaves; 
aspiring  women;  and  presently  the  spawn  of  fast-breed 
ing  Asiatics  in  our  midst  to  come  forward  to  rule  us,  we 
no  longer  wonder  as  our  eye  ranges  over  incumbents  to 
see  the  offices  filled  by  demagogues  and  agitators  who  pros 
titute  their  place  for  personal  gain. 

Thus  the  hollowness  of  form  is  supplemented  by  the 
hypocrisies  of  incumbents,  and  indirection  becomes  the 
basic  element  of  our  government  by  the  people  for  the 
people. 

Change  it  all,  reformers  say,  the  sort  of  reformers  that 
talk  but  never  act. 

But  how?  Elections  rage,  presidents  conie  and  go,  a 
Wilson  succeeds  a  Taft,  each  depth  finding  a  lower  depth. 

"I  stand  for  Americanism,  for  undiluted  American 
ism,"  shouts  an  aspirant  for  high  office.  It  sounds  well 
and  the  crowd  cheers,  though  not  knowing  why,  even 
German  hyphenates  not  knowing  or  caring  for  what  they 
applaud.  Does  the  candidate  himself  know  whereof  he 
speaks  ?  For  it  is  to  be  feared  he  may  be  kept  long  stand 
ing  before  undiluted  Americanism  comes  to  him  again  in 
America,  Americanism  undiluted  either  with  Germans  or 
Irish,  Latin  or  Slav.  Because  for  undiluted  Americanism 
we  must  have  undiluted  Americans. 

Americanism!  What  is  it  and  where  is  it?  I  see  can 
didates  for  office,  high  and  low,  scouring  the  country  for 
votes,  bellowing  like  bulls  of  Bashan  for  office,  lauding 
their  own  ability  and  principles  to  the  disparagement  of 
all  others.  I  see  in  office  men  whom  no  merchant  would 
trust  with  his  cash  box,  whom  no  husband  would  trust 
with  his  wife,  whom  no  thief  would  trust  with  his  part  of 
the  plunder,  yet  from  this  refuse  of  humanity  we  select 
a  percentage  of  our  rulers. 

The  ideals  of  Americanism,  of  a  representative  democ 
racy,  as  promulgated  by  office-seeking  orators  are  every 


A    PROBLEM    IN   EVOLUTION  7 

man  and  every  woman  a  citizen,  each  with  equal  rights 
and  influence  in  the  government.  How  far  this  condition 
obtains  in  the  United  States  we  may  observe  and  determine. 

Is  it  Americanism  as  it  is  or  as  it  should  be  that  our 
aspirant  stands  for?  We  cannot  achieve  renascence  in  a 
moment.  There  is  no  Americanism,  there  is  no  America 
now  existing  of  the  nature  or  quality  promulgated  by 
the  founders  of  this  republic.  The  representative  democ 
racy  of  Hamilton,  of  Jefferson,  of  Washington  was  quite 
a  different  affair  from  the  representative  democracy  of 
the  present  day. 

Nor  can  we  re-Americanize  America  by  statute.  We 
cannot  make  honest  high-minded  citizens  of  grasping  mil 
lionaires  who  pose  for  everything  that  is  patriotic  while 
pinching  every  opportunity  for  more  money.  The  time 
has  past  for  making  over  bad  material  for  good  citizen 
ship,  whether  we  seek  it  in  the  halls  of  Congress,  or  among 
the  lords  of  finance,  or  in  the  cesspools  of  Europe. 

In  the  bulletin  of  the  National  Geographical  society 
one  writes: 

"It  is  a  fact  not  generally  recognized  that  the  foreign 
population  of  the  United  States,  together  with  sons  and 
daughters  of  parents  one  or  both  of  whom  are  or  were 
of  foreign  birth,  constitute  a  third  of  the  entire  population 
of  the  country. 

"In  a  number  of  states  the  people  of  foreign  birth  or 
foreign  or  mixed  parentage  exceed  in  numbers  those  of 
native  birth  and  parentage.  This  condition  obtains  in 
Massachusetts,  where  the  foreign  element  by  birth  or  par 
entage  is  twice  as  great  as  the  element  of  unmixed  native 
lineage.  That  state  had  in  1910,  1,103,000  people  both  of 
whose  parents  were  born  within  the  United  States,  as  com 
pared  with  2,221,000  who  were  either  born  abroad  them 
selves  or  had  one  or  both  parents  born  abroad. 

"The  same  condition  prevails  in  Rhode  Island.  That 
state  has  a  population  of  159,821  of  native  ancestry,  against 
372,671  of  foreign  birth  or  lineage. 


8  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

"In  Connecticut  we  find  a  population  of  native  ances 
try  aggregating  395,000,  and  of  foreign  birth  or  ancestry 
aggregating  703,000. 

"In  New  York  there  is  a  population  of  native  ancestry 
reaching  a  total  of  3,230,000.  Against  this  there  is  a 
population  of  foreign  birth  or  foreign  or  mixed  ancestry 
amounting  to  5,715,000. 

"The  balance  in  favor  of  the  population  of  foreign 
birth  or  foreign  ancestry,  in  whole  or  in  part  of  New  Jer 
sey  is  425,000,  the  population  of  native  ancestry  amount 
ing  to  1,010,000  as  against  1,435,000  in  the  case  of  foreign 
element. 

"Illinois  also  falls  in  the  list  of  states  where  the  popu 
lation  of  full  native  stock  is  smaller  than  that  of  foreign 
birth  or  foreign  or  partly  foreign  ancestry.  Its  popu 
lation  of 'native  lineage  amounts  to  2,600,000.  Against 
this  there  is  a  population  wholly  or  partly  foreign  by  birth 
or  ancestry  of  2,925,000,  a  difference  of  325,000. 

"Michigan  also  falls  in  this  class,  with  1,560,000  wholly 
or  partly  of  foreign  birth  and  ancestry  as  compared  with 
1,224,000  of  pure  native  lineage. 

"Minnesota  has  nearly  three  times  as  many  people 
born  abroad,  or  with  one  or  both  parents  of  foreign  birth, 
as  she  has  of  sons  and  daughters  of  native  stock.  Her 
population  of  foreigners  and  their  children  totals  1,483,000 
as  compared  with  575,000  for  the  native  element. 

"Montana  has  199,000  people  of  foreign  birth  and 
foreign  or  mixed  ancestry,  as  against  162,000  of  native 
ancestry. 

"Wyoming  gets  into  the  same  column  by  about  the 
same  proportion.  The  state  of  Washington  has  390,000 
more  of  the  foreign  than  of  the  native  element,  while 
California  practically  breaks  even. 

"Taking  the  statistics  of  the  male  population  twenty- 
one  years  of  age  and  upward  for  the  entire  country,  it  is 
found  that  only  48.9  per  cent  of  them  are  of  straight, 
white  native  ancestry.  The  negro  element  adds  9.1  per 


A   PROBLEM   IN   EVOLUTION  9 

cent  to  this,  and  the  remainder,  41.3  per  cent,  is  repre 
sented  by  the  men  of  foreign  birth  or  the  sons  of  foreign 
or  mixed  parentage. 

"Taking  the  different  states  we  find  some  striking  sta 
tistics.  In  the  proportion  of  foreign  birth  or  foreign  or 
mixed  ancestry  to  native,  among  the  men  of  21  years  and 
upwards,  North  Dakota  takes  first  rank  among  the  states 
with  99  per  cent  belonging  to  the  former  class.  Minne 
sota  ranks  next  with  78  per  cent,  and  Wisconsin  third 
with  77.7  per  cent. 

"Approximately  two-thirds  of  the  men  in  Massachu 
setts,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  New  York,  and  Utah  are 
sons  or  grandsons  of  foreign  lands.  In  New  Jersey,  Illi 
nois,  Michigan,  South  Dakota,  and  Montana  the  proportion 
ranges  from  61  per  cent  to  57  per  cent,  while  in  Nebraska, 
Nevada,  Washington,  and  California  it  is  slightly  more 
than  half. 

"In  Utah  it  falls  to  58.8  per  cent,  in  Wyoming  to  45.9 
per  cent,  in  Missouri  to  29.7  per  cent,  in  Kansas  to  30.8 
per  cent,  and  in  Oregon  to  40.4  per  cent." 

One  cause  of  the  hatred  of  Jews  in  Russia  is  that  they 
are  an  alien  race,  the  chief  factor  of  unity  in  the  Russian 
empire  being  the  Russian  people. 

This  present  America,  I  repeat,  can  never  be  Ameri 
canized.  Out  of  such  mixed  material  as  we  have  a  new 
nation  may,  perhaps,  be  made,  but  it  will  be  a  nation 
without  beginning,  a  new  birth  possibly  but  not  a  bring 
ing  forth.  We  are  here  what  we  are  in  ebullition ;  what 
the  substance  will  be  boiled  down  we  cannot  tell.  We 
speak  of  the  foreign  born  citizens,  but  such  a  thing  does 
not  exist.  Alien  born  is  always  alien;  the  unnatural  can 
not  be  nationalized  however  he  may  be  whitewashed  in 
court  and  called  citizen.  How  can  we  teach  love  of 
country,  any  more  than  we  can  teach  a  tree  how  to  grow  ? 
Can  we  train  a  German  to  love  England  or  a  Jap  to  love 
America?  We  have  drifted  out  of  the  category  of  nations, 


10  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

and  are  fast  establishing  ourselves  in  internationalism. 
This  our  early  ideals  of  Americanism  did  not  contemplate, 
the  regeneration  of  the  world  and  equalization  by  lowering 
our  own  standards  of  civic  righteousness  while  endeav 
oring  to  elevate  others. 

They  might  have  managed  well  enough  in  reasonable 
numbers  colonists  like  Stuyvesant's  Hollanders  and  Penn's 
German  Quakers,  but  when  it  came  to  Austrians,  Italians, 
Poles  and  Portuguese;  Russian  Jews  and  Irish  agitators 
in  unlimited  hordes  it  ceased  to  be  beneficial.  They  might 
have  taken  a  lesson  from  nature.  A  twig  from  the  mount 
of  olives  instantly  recognizes  the  relationship  and  brings 
forth  fruit  if  joined  to  kindred  stock  in  India  though  two 
thousand  years  have  passed  without  communication,  but 
graft  a  Hungarian  bramble  into  an  Ohio  apple-tree  and 
the  result  is  not  nattering.  There  is  a  society  somewhere 
for  raising  the  standards  of  American  ideals.  It  is  cer 
tainly  a  worthy  purpose,  involving  a  much  needed  work. 
Our  large  possessions  and  liberal  tendencies  which  were 
such  attractions  to  the  poor  of  Europe  were  emphasized 
by  the  cupidity  of  the  colonists  no  less  than  from  philan 
thropic  motives. 

Is  it  our  form  of  government,  or  maladministration, 
or  both,  that  brings  upon  us  all  these  irrational  and 
unnecessary  obstructions  to  our  progress?  Our  national 
principles  and  our  national  methods  seemed  to  work  har 
moniously  during  the  first  period  of  our  history,  when 
right-minded  men  of  action  and  integrity  ruled  over 
affairs,  when  the  world's  honesty  and  sincerity  were  some 
thing  more  than  the  sounding  brass  and  tinkling  cymbal 
of  elections. 

Less  than  three  half  centuries  ago  this  confederacy 
was  established  by  the  best  men  then  living,  and  passed 
on  to  posterity  for  the  accomplishment  of  its  destiny. 

That  destiny  was  problematical.  Never  before  had  a 
similar  experiment  been  made;  never  before  had  been  or 
ganized  a  similar  association  by  superior  men  upon  prin- 


A   PROBLEM    IN    EVOLUTION  11 

ciples  somewhat  higher  than  present  profit,  somewhat 
nobler  than  pure  selfishness.  And  that  the  founders  of 
this  commonwealth  were  superior  men  the  British  par 
liament  of  that  day  acknowledged,  as  all  Americans  and 
all  the  world  will  testify  at  the  present  time.  The  best 
men  then  living,  and  nothing  better  since ;  may  their  names 
be  ever  revered. 

English  statesmen  regarded  this  experiment  with  inter 
est  and  respect;  English  royalty  and  nobility  sneered  at 
and  opposed  it,  as  later  they  sneered  at  and  opposed  our 
war  for  the  union. 

For  the  first  fifty  years  the  new  nation-makers  were 
occupied  largely  in  general  adjustments,  in  fitting  varied 
elements  to  new  conditions,  in  regulating  matters  per 
taining  to  legislation,  war,  finance,  and  industrial  progress, 
in  which  all,  high  and  low,  took  part. 

These  efforts  were  attended  by  such  jealousies  and 
bickerings  between  states  and  individuals  as  human  nature 
is  heir  to,  but  on  the  whole  they  were  successful. 

It  was  established  in  these  first  flush  years  of  the  new 
republic,  occupying  a  virgin  land  of  beauty  and  fertility, 
that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  freedom  in  this  world,  free 
dom  for  man  from  the  tyranny  of  his  fellow  man;  that 
there  were  such  blessings  on  this  earth,  such  flowers  of 
civilization  as  liberty  of  heart  and  mind  to  think  one's 
own  thoughts,  to  control  one's  own  acts,  and  to  live  one's 
own  life  along  one's  own  pathway  in  the  pursuit  of  hap 
piness. 

It  was  further  established  that  all  men  are  born  to 
equal  rights  of  occupancy,  and  to  the  fruits  of  the  earth, 
howsoever  the  inequality  which  later  may  arise  from  the 
use  or  abuse  of  them ;  that  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  right 
of  kings  is  abortive;  that  the  pretentions  of  a  privileged 
class,  of  inherited  superiority  by  a  coterie  of  so-called 
nobility,  the  drones  of  society  supported  by  the  labor  of 
others,  is  a  falsity;  and  that  spiritual  belief  for  all  the 
people  based  on  the  opinions  of  the  few,  practiced  for  a 


12  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

profit,  and  supported  by  the  taxation  of  labor  is  a  super 
stition  and  an  abomination. 

The  promise  was  very  fair,  during  this  early  epoch, 
for  a  deliverance  from  these  and  other  enormities,  and 
the  end  did  not  belie  the  anticipation.  Amid  the  lighter 
evils  that  sprang  up  at  this  time,  however,  was  the  more 
serious  question  of  African  slavery.  Opinions  differed  as 
usual  where  varied  interests  were  at  stake.  The  slave 
trade  soon  became  repulsive  to  advancd  refinement,  and 
was  discontinued  by  all  civilized  nations,  but  a  continu 
ance  of  slavery  where  it  existed  was  regarded  as  a  right 
by  slave-holders,  though  denied  by  their  opponents,  which 
contention  culminated  in  a  war  for  the  integrity  of  the 
union. 

Other  questions  of  serious  import  arose.  Would  the 
coming  course  of  this  federation  be  upward  or  downward ; 
would  future  development  be  for  the  better  or  for  the 
worse;  would  this  republic  of  states,  which  was  also  to  be 
a  republic  of  liberty,  of  letters,  of  morals  prove  in  its 
evolving  course  what  its  founders  had  expected,  or  sink 
in  disgrace  and  failure?  Would  the  great  American  re 
public  live  or  die?  The  question  is  as  much  an  enigma 
now  as  when  James  Madison  assumed  office. 

And  more  so.  For  few  will  deny  that  during  the  last 
half  century  we  have  not  been  living  up  to  the  high  ideals 
entertained  for  us  by  its  founders.  Since  Lincoln's  time 
we  have  had  but  one  president  for  whom  any  just  claim 
can  be  laid  to  a  patriotism  superior  to  self -advancement, 
and  for  that  merit  he  was  metaphorically  stoned  with 
stones ;  for  that  merit  he  received  more  of  the  vilest  abuse, 
interlarded  with  lying  accusations  from  the  men  of  money 
and  their  satellites  of  the  public  press,  who  are  now  re 
penting  in  sackcloth,  than  might  have  been  bestowed  as 
just  censure  on  many  others  high  in  office. 

Prior  to  this  deflection,  however,  prosperity  flowed  in 
upon  the  colonists  in  such  copious  streams  as  to  excite  still 
farther  their  cupidity,  and  soon  the  cry  arose,  "More  men, 


A    PROBLEM    IN    EVOLUTION  13 

more  population;  fill  up  these  vacant  lands,  build  towns, 
establish  commerce,  and  presently  we  will  all  be  rich  and 
strong";  and  with  this  and  the  civil  war  greed  broke  forth 
in  all  its  ugliness. 

Dishonesty  attended  greed.  Fresh  hordes  of  low-grade 
immigrants  lowered  still  further  the  standard  of  Ameri 
can  citizenship,  and  the  evolution  of  these  American  states 
took  a  downward  turn.  Our  sacred  liberty  was  prosti 
tuted  for  gain.  But  the  success  of  the  northern  arms  and 
the  preservation  of  the  union  saved  the  situation,  and  hope 
again  subordinated  fear. 

Yes,  we  won!  We  achieved  wealth — and  demoraliza 
tion.  We  made  money,  and  money  is  a  good  thing.  Our 
bright  dream  of  avarice  came  true.  We  are  rich  and 
strong.  But  what  else  are  we?  We  are  a  denationalized 
community  of  mixed  races  from  every  quarter  of  the 
earth,  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa.  Our  birthright  we  have 
flung  to  the  winds,  the  lofty  ideals  and  anticipations  of 
our  forefathers  we  have  bartered  away.  We  have  no  com 
mon  origin,  no  worshipful  traditions,  no  proper  name ;  we 
are  not  a  development  from  anything;  we  are  a  transfor 
mation,  a  substitution  evolved  from  an  abstraction.  We 
are  not  the  same  people  that  fought  for  independence,  or 
for  the  union;  we  are  not  of  the  class  that  founded  the 
republic.  There  are  a  few  Adamses  left  in  Boston,  a  Knick 
erbocker  or  two  in  New  York,  and  a  town  remnant  of 
Quakerism  in  Philadelphia;  but  we  have  plenty  of  Afri 
cans,  ten  million  or  so,  plenty  of  Asiatics,  and  some  mixed 
millions  of  Scandinavians,  Russians,  Poles,  Greeks,  Ital 
ians,  Jews,  Germans,  and  Portuguese,  and  Irish  enough 
and  to  spare.  And  all  the  while  we  fancy  we  are  trans 
forming  an  alien  mixture  into  standardized  Americans, 
when  we  are  only  standardizing  the  mixture. 

''Since  the  civil  war,"  said  an  anonymous  writer  in 
1880,  "we  have  had  new  elements  and  conditions  in  our 
national  life,  and  there  have  been  important  changes  in 
the  relative  strength  of  certain  of  the  old  forces.  We  have 


14  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

been  confronted  by  problems  and  dangers  which  we  had 
thought  could  never  arise  in  the  path  of  a  nation  with 
institutions  like  ours.  Not  only  had  we  come  to  regard 
our  system  of  government  as  superior  to  all  others,  but 
we  trusted  still  more  to  that  wonderful  perfection  and 
vitality  of  character  which  we  believe  ourselves  as  a  people 
to  possess,  and  which  as  we  boasted  enabled  us  to  receive 
from  all  other  countries  the  most  incongruous  and  unfa 
vorable  materials,  and  assimilate  and  transmute  them  all 
into  the  texture  and  substance  of  a  noble  national  life. 
We  had  not  before  the  war  been  prepared  in  any  way  for 
the  tasks  or  difficulties  which  we  have  since  encountered. 
We  had  little  practical  knowledge  of  pauperism  or  of  the 
labor  question.  Our  politicians  had  but  slight  knowledge 
of  political  economy,  and  generally  thought  the  study  of 
such  subjects  unnecessary  in  our  country." 

Wherefore,  we  have  now  only  to  make  the  best  of  things, 
which  are  bad  enough,  though  not  so  bad  as  they  might  be. 

And  first  of  all  we  should  take  a  square  look  at  the 
situation,  ascertain  the  cause  of  growing  corruption,  and 
apply  the  remedy  if  we  are  able  to  do  so.  And  for  this 
work  there  are  many  who  are  competent  when  once  the 
spirit  moves  them. 

There  are  various  sorts  of  tyranny  the  world  has  been 
fated  to  undergo  during  its  ever  evolving  progress.  There 
is  the  tyranny  of  priest  and  prelate,  the  tyranny  of  kings, 
those  emissaries  of  Satan  who  can  do  no  wrong;  the 
tyranny  of  inherited  superiority;  the  tyranny  of  democ 
racy,  of  capital,  of  labor.  But  before  the  expiration  of  the 
third  epoch  in  our  history,  it  came  to  us  that  there  was  a 
worse  tyranny  than  any  of  these,  the  tyranny  of  lust, 
money-lust,  lust  for  power,  lust  for  office,  tyranny  which 
ere  now  has  wrought  the  downfall  of  nations  and  upturned 
the  world.  And  last,  to  crown  all,  there  is  a  tyranny  never 
before  encountered  in  the  political  experience  of  any  other 
country,  the  tyranny  of  the  schoolmaster. 


A    PROBLEM    IN    EVOLUTION  15 

It  is  well  to  be  reminded  on  the  fourth  day  of  every 
July  that  this  is  a  land  of  liberty,  that  our  puritan  ances 
tors  came  hither  primarily  for  freedom  to  worship  God, 
which  privilege  they  themselves  enjoyed  and  granted  to 
others  so  long  as  the  others  conformed  in  thought  and 
action  to  their  tenets,  kept  all  the  commandments,  did  not 
go  fishing  or  courting  on  Sunday,  were  not  Quakers,  and 
did  not  indulge  in  witchcraft,  in  which  case  they  were 
burned  or  drowned.  Which  shows  what  the  tyranny  of 
liberty  will  do. 

The  flag,  we  are  told,  means  America,  undivided  alle 
giance,  America  strong,  united,  and  efficient;  it  speaks  of 
equal  rights,  free  institutions,  liberty,  and  order.  So  high 
the  ideals,  so  eloquent  the  words,  so  far  removed  the  ex 
pression  from  the  realization  that  we  might  imagine  it 
irony,  or  simply  the  outbursts  of  a  candidate,  the  eloquence 
of  a  patriot  seeking  office,  as'  seems  to  us  nearest  the  truth. 

One  unhappy  influence  attending  our  political  system 
springs  from  the  implanted  seeds  of  corruption,  which  as 
the  bee  buzzes  in  the  aspirant's  ear,  and  the  itching  for 
place  increases,  germinate  and  bring  forth  fruits  of  evil 
import.  On  entering  upon  the  duties  of  office,  and  before, 
whether  president,  judge,  or  policeman,  the  primary  con 
sideration  is  not  the  public  weal,  except  in  so  far  as  it  min 
isters  to  personal  advantage,  but  how  best  to  increase  party 
strength  and  secure  reelection. 

It  is  a  disease,  the  name  of  which  if  applied  to  the 
chief  magistrate  might  be  presidential  paralysis.  It  ap 
pears  first  in  the  form  of  self-deception.  The  fresh  incum 
bent  is  sure  of  himself,  is  sure  that  he  is  a  pure  patriot, 
an  honest  man,  one  who  will  serve  his  country  faithfully 
as  God  will  help  him.  Then  creeps  in  that  silent  subtle 
warp  of  mind  which  makes  the  worse  appear  the  better 
part,  and  which  in  due  time  reconciles  all  political  indi 
rection  with  personal  advantage. 

Presently  a  change  appears.  Slowly  we  see  cropping 
out  self-consideration;  party  is  placed  before  principle, 


16  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

personal  gain  before  public  good,  then  hypocrisy  and  trick 
ery  pure  and  simple. 

In  due  time  the  whilome  patriot  is  ready  for  any  ras 
cality  which  will  not  too  greatly  smirch  his  reputation. 

This  is  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception  in  regard  to 
our  chief  magistrates,  their  associates  and  subordinates. 
Like  the  gods  we  elevate  so  elevate  we  our  rulers.  We 
should  remember  that  they  are  human  like  the  rest  of  us, 
and  that  we  should  not  endow  them  with  superhuman 
qualities. 

Being  evil-minded  ourselves,  we  choose  our  president 
from  sinister  motives.  First  he  must  be  one  who  can  win 
his  election;  next  he  must  be  one  who  embodies  our  inter 
ests,  or  peradventure  our  ideals.  We  clothe  him  with 
super-political  qualities,  we  endow  him  with  virtues  which 
we  fain  would  have  him  possess.  At  first  we  declare  him 
able  and  honest;  when  faults  appear  we  attribute  them 
to  untoward  circumstances.  After  all  such  a  man  is  not 
president  of  the  people  but  president  of  whatever  clan 
or  coterie  it  may  have  been  that  supplied  the  votes  for 
his  election.  And  to  those  who  furnished  such  money  or 
means  as  a  rule  he  will  be  true,  keeping  his  promises  and 
holding  fast  to  his  professed  principles  until  he  imagines 
it  to  his  interests  to  change  them,  which  has  been  too 
often  the  case  with  us  of  late. 

There  are  many  exceptions  to  this  rule.  Every  official, 
not  having  as  yet  sunk  too  deep  in  the  mire  regards  him 
self  as  an  exception.  Nevertheless  the  rule  holds,  almost 
every  one  being  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  tinctured  by 
the  poison. 

When  a  measure  is  brought  before  Congress  what  is 
the  actuating  motive  attending  its  disposition?  Is  it  the 
welfare  of  the  country?  By  no  means.  That  is  ostensibly 
the  first  consideration,  but  in  reality  it  is  the  last;  indi 
vidual  and  party  interests  determine  legislation. 

"Am  I  fool  enough  to  go  against  my  own  interests?" 
the  patriot  asks. 


A    PROBLEM   IN   EVOLUTION  17 

What  president  has  ever  stepped  down  and  out  of  the 
White  House  with  as  good  reputation  for  conscientious 
ness,  honor,  sinceriety,  and  integrity  as  when  he  first 
entered  it?  There  are  always  Washington  and  Lincoln, 
and  we  might  mention  one  or  two  others.  Some  will  not 
agree  with  me  if  I  name  Theodore  Roosevelt,  but  I  feel 
quite  certain  of  the  fact  that  throughout  the  world  today, 
no  one  stands  higher  than  he  for  manly  qualities,  for 
political  unselfishness,  and  for  the  glorious  crown  of  states 
manship,  pure  patriotism. 

Making  the  charge  more  general  we  might  ask  how 
many  prominent  incumbents  have  ever  left  office  with  a 
reputation  as  good  as  when  they  entered  it?  How  many 
appear  clothed  in  the  same  respect,  not  to  say  affection, 
in  which  they  were  arrayed  when  first  taking  their  place 
among  the  plaudits  of  the  people?  There  have  been  some, 
thank  God,  but  not  many.  If  the  out-going  office-holder 
is  nothing  the  worse  as  a  man,  he  is  at  least  better  known. 

Before'  our  civil  war,  and  for  a  short  time  thereafter, 
town  and  county  affairs,  except  in  the  larger  cities,  were 
as  a  rule  faithfully  and  honestly  conducted.  They  were 
managed  as  one  would  manage  one's  own  private  business. 
But  since  then,  with  growing  corruption  in  the  higher 
offices,  county  boards  of  supervisors  have  become  notori 
ously  corrupt.  Many  are  the  public  buildings,  the  actual 
cost  of  which  was  not  more  than  half  or  three-fourths  of 
what  the  people  were  made  to  pay  for  them. 

Whatever  may  be  the  platform  or  principle  upon  or 
by  reason  of  which  a  candidate  for  office  is  selected,  we 
give  him  credit  at  the  start  for  honesty  and  sincerity, 
only  later  too  often  to  see  these  qualities  gradually  dis 
appear,  hypocrisy  and  personal  advantage  taking  their 
place.  The  people  are  slow  to  doubt  the  good  intentions 
of  those  they  have  elected  to  office,  but  they  are  sometimes 
unfortunately  forced  to  do  so. 

Harassed  by  the  many  new  and  intricate  problems  sur 
rounding  him  during  the  civil  war,  Lincoln  said,  "It  has 


18  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

long  been  a  grave  question  whether  any  government,  not 
too  strong  for  the  liberties  of  the  people,  can  be  strong 
enough  to  maintain  its  existence  in  great  emergencies." 
That  the  question  was  properly  answered  at  that  time  is 
no  proof  that  it  would  be  so  answered  now.  And  as  for 
the  future,  dream  as  we  may  of  endless  endurance,  dis 
aster  comes,  and  we  have  no  reason  to  regard  ourselves 
immune  from  the  common  fate  of  nations.  We  should 
scarcely  expect  this  republic  at  its  present  pace  to  run  on 
forever. 

Withal,  if  as  a  government  we  are  not  in  every  respect 
as  we  might  be,  there  is  a  preponderance  to  the  good. 
Even  now,  amid  the  fall  of  dynasties  and  the  crumbling 
of  monarchies,  America  is  called  upon  perforce  to  save  the 
world  and  make  it  possible,  and  in  such  performance  willy - 
nilJy  America  becomes  the  sovereign  power  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER  II 

APOCALYPTIC 

AS  TO  the  future  of  our  country  opinion  is  as  free  as  it  is 
J_\_  valueless.  Naturally  we  look  for  great  developments, 
but  in  what  direction  none  can  tell.  Why  we  respect  the 
opinion  of  the  ultra-respectable  more  than  that  of  the 
average  citizen,  in  matters  regarding  which  neither  can 
know  anything,  is  not  because  of  the  reasonableness  of  it, 
but  because  we  are  made  that  way. 

Our  speculations  regarding  the  future  must  always  be 
qualified  by  a  conjunction,  in  which  case,  in  some  instances, 
prognostications  may  be  reduced  to  certainties. 

Thus  we  may  safely  say  that  great  as  are  our  resources, 
a  continuance  of  the  present  extravagance  and  wanton 
waste,  public  and  private,  will  lead  to  ruin.  We  may  be 
very  sure  that  the  loss  of  our  carrying  trade  signifies  the 
loss  of  our  commerce;  that  unless  San  Francisco  bay  is 
made  a  world  center  of  industry  it  becomes  a  way  station ; 
that  unless  San  Francisco  dominates  the  Pacific,  the  Pacific 
will  never  be  dominated  by  the  United  States. 

We  may  be  very  sure  that  if  Japanese  women  are  per 
mitted  to  enter  the  United  States  and  breed  American  citi 
zens,  that  at  no  very  distant  period  the  United  States  will 
be  more  Japanese  than  American.  Meanwhile  the  grim 
race  problem  glances  from  the  rapidly  increasing  horde 
of  Asiatic  citizens  to  the  rapidly  increasing  horde  of  Afri 
can  citizens,  then  waves  its  skinny  hand  over  our  Euro 
pean  concretions  and  mutters — hybridism! 

We  may  be  very  sure  if  the  government  of  the  republic 
is  wrested  from  the  hands  of  the  people  at  large,  and 

19 


20  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

allowed  to  fall  under  the  control  of  any  one  of  the  several 
cliques  or  cabals  aspiring  to  that  honor,  as  labor-leaders, 
capitalists,  socialists,  catholics,  that  we  will  very  soon  cease 
to  be  a  republic  and  become  an  oligarchy. 

Within  the  province  of  history  we  find  there  have 
been  some  fifty  republics,  about  half  of  them  still  alive. 
Something  perhaps  may  be  learned  from  a  glance  at  the 
fate  of  those  which  have  appeared  and  disappeared  in 
times  past.  Of  the  length  of  their  existence  respectively 
the  time  has  varied  from  a  few  years  to  a  millennium. 
Thus  after  decapitating  royalty,  with  its  arbitrary  exac 
tions,  in  the  person  of  Charles  I,  in  1649,  England  enjoyed 
a  republican  period  of  eleven  years,  while  the  republic 
of  Venice  under  the  Doges  dominated  the  economic  world 
for  1200  years.  Before  Venice  was  republican  Rome, 
whose  rule  was  for  500  years,  or  until  27  B.  C.,  when 
Octavius  became  emperor. 

More  than  a  thousand  years  before  Christ,  at  the  death 
of  Codrus,  finding  no  one  worthy  to  succeed  him,  Athens 
abolished  royalty,  and  was  governed  by  archons  for  1000 
years,  when  it  fell  under  the  power  of  the  Romans  and 
other  invaders. 

Sparta,  once  the  rival  of  Athens,  preserved  a  repub 
lican  form  of  government,  mixed  with  monarchy,  until 
with  the  rest  of  Greece  it  fell  before  Rome,  as  Rome  fell 
finally  under  a  load  of  luxury  and  licentiousness,  and  as 
the  United  States  of  America  may  one  day  fall  if  we  do 
not  mend  our  ways. 

Genoa  became  a  free  commercial  state  about  A.  1). 
1000,  and  continued  as  such  for  seven  centuries,  until  ex 
tinguished  with  Venice  in  1792  by  Napoleon  Bonaparte, 
who  was  himself  extinguished  at  Waterloo. 

France  tried  republican  rule  several  times  on  and  off, 
before  settling  down  to  a  representative  government  as 
the  best, — first  owing  to  the  tyranny  of  royalty  and  the 
privileged  classes  in  1792,  restoring  monarchy  in  1804,  to 


APOCALYPTIC  21 

try  republicanism  again  in  1848,  and  again  on  the  over 
throw  of  Louis  Napoleon  in  1870.  With  its  legislative 
power  vested  in  a  senate  of  300  members  and  a  chamber 
of  deputies  numbering  500  or  600  members  elected  by 
universal  suffrage,  France  may  be  reckoned  among  the 
first  class  republics  left  alive  in  the  world  today. 

Switzerland,  whose  political  integrity  is  respected  by 
all  nations,  delivered  herself  from  the  incubi  of  emperors 
and  nobles  by  becoming  a  republic  or  confederation  in 
1352,  continuing  thus  for  565  years,  with  a  potential  other 
like  period  of  independence  and  happiness,  provided  the 
Hohenzollerns  and  Hapsburgs  are  properly  secured  and 
muzzled  at  the  end  of  the  present  war. 

Back  before  Christ  Geneva,  a  gallic  town  of  the  Allo- 
broges,  afterward  capital  of  Burgundy  and  part  of  Char 
lemagne's  empire,  declared  republicanism  in  1512  and 
joined  the  Swiss  cantons  in  1584.  Then  there  are  the 
small  republican  states  of  San  Marino  and  Andorra;  and 
in  some  respects  the  free  cities  of  Liibeck,  Hamburg,  and 
Bremen  might  be  called  republics.  Poland  was  regarded 
as  a  republic  because  her  king  was  elective.  Venice  with 
a  franchise  restricted  to  limited  aristocracy  was  ruled  by 
a  small  oligarchy. 

When  the  seven  confederated  states  of  the  united  Neth 
erlands  renounced  their  allegiance  to  Philip  II  they  as 
sumed  the  form  of  republicanism. 

Venice,  the  most  aristocratic  of  all  ancient  republics, 
where  the  franchised  classes  exercised  their  power  without 
delegation  or  representation,  lived  the  longest  of  any,  and 
was  the  most  prosperous. 

The  fifteen  semi-republics  of  Spanish  America  are  all 
fashioned  upon  much  the  same  pattern,  being  an  abortive 
attempt  to  unite  the  autocracy  of  Spain  with  the  repre 
sentative  democracy  of  America.  They  are  all  opposed 
to  anything  nominally  monarchical;  they  will  not  tolerate 
in  name  any  title  or  intimation  of  anything  royal  or  im 
perial,  not  to  say  autocratic  or  despotic.  Howsoever  near 


22  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

in  practice  they  may  come  to  such  forms,  they  will  have 
only  a  republican  government,  though  ruled  by  those 
whose  occupation  is  to  destroy  rather  than  conserve,  as 
in  Mexico. 

Most  of  them  declared  their  independence  from  Spain 
and  assumed  a  republican  form  of  government  during  the 
decade  from  1815  to  1825.  Bolivia  has  three  legislative 
chambers,  and  a  president  elected  for  life.  Chili  has  a 
national  congress,  a  chamber  of  deputies,  and  a  president 
elected  for  five  years,  with  a  council  of  state  and  five  cabi 
net  ministers.  Suffrage  is  confined  to  persons  able  to  read 
and  write  who  pay  a  tax,  which  restricts  the  number  of 
voters  and  renders  the  rule  somewhat  arbitrary. 

Colombia,  formerly  New  Granada,  has  senate  and  rep 
resentative  chambers,  a  president  chosen  every  two  years, 
and  four  ministers.  Costa  Rica  has  a  president  and  two 
vice-presidents,  the  legislative  power  being  vested  in  a 
congress  of  deputies.  Ecuador  has  a  president,  who  is 
also  minister  of  the  interior,  three  other  cabinet  officers, 
and  a  congressional  senate  and  house  of  representatives. 
And  so  on ;  with  slight  variations  we  may  name  Venezuela, 
Uruguay,  San  Salvador,  Peru,  Paraguay,  Nicaragua,  Hon 
duras,  and  Guatemala. 

It  is  a  good  indication  this  struggle  toward  liberalism 
on  the  part  of  these  American  off-shoots  from  Spanish 
absolutism,  a  self-deliverance  from  the  servitude  of  me 
dieval  monarchism,  even  though  brought  to  the  absurdity 
which  Mexico  now  enjoys,  which  seems  to  prefer  anarchic 
republicanism  to  none  at  all.  Just  as  England,  though 
loathe  to  let  go  the  now  obsolete  and  ridiculous  genuflec 
tions  current  in  the  days  of  her  royal  masters,  her  Johns, 
and  Henrys,  and  Edwards,  will  still  have  in  practice  her 
republican  rule,  and  that  of  the  best  and  highest  order. 

It  is  good,  I  say,  for  these  American  republics  thus 
to  set  forth  in  outward  form  the  principles  of  liberty  and 
independence,  even  though  unable  at  the  outset  to  attain 
the  full  realization  of  their  dreams  of  a  happy  and  pro- 


APOCALYPTIC  23 

gressive  commonwealth,  rather  than  cling  to  the  super 
stitions  of  the  past,  in  remembrance  of  their  old-time  servi 
tude  and  degradation  as  the  effete  monarchies  of  Europe 
seem  so  to  delight  in. 

There  is  some  excuse  for  the  imperfections  of  the  Span 
ish  Americans,  where  often  there  can  be  no  government 
by  the  people  for  the  people,  because  there  are  no  people 
suitable  for  self-government,  but  rather  ignorant  half -civ 
ilized  natives  or  half-castes.  Mexico  and  China  are  still 
making  desperate  efforts  to  reconcile  despotism  with  de 
mocracy,  though  baffled  at  every  turn  by  individualism. 
Twice  since  achieving  independence  in  1824  Mexico  was 
compelled  to  thwart  imperialistic  attempts,  one  made  by 
Iturbide  early  in  the  life  of  the  republic,  and  the  other 
by  Maximilian,  of  Austria,  who  held  his  ground  from 
1863  to  1867,  both  sacrificing  their  lives  in  the  cause. 

Quite  different  in  some  instances  from  our  modern  idea 
of  commonwealth  republicanism  were  the  republics  even 
of  ancient  Greece  and  Eome,  with  the  franchise  embodied 
in  a  few  who  governed  for  all,  both  freemen  and  slaves.  In 
their  incipience  these  republics  were  essentially  aristocratic. 
Somewhat  less  so  were  the  medieval  republics  of  Genoa 
and  Venice,  while  the  more  modern  commonwealths  sought 
to  achieve  pure  democracy.  Without  a  proper  people  as 
a  fundamental  all  republics  must  be  as  are  those  of  Span 
ish  America,  more  oligarchic,  or  anarchic,  than  democratic. 

We  all  know  that  in  principle  and  in  practice  England 
is  more  republican  than  monarchical.  Monarchy  signifies 
sovereign  control  by  a  monarch.  Such  is  not  George  V, 
who  is  neither  sovereign  in  control  nor  yet  a  monarch, 
nor  yet  hardly  a  man.  What  could  he  do  had  he  his  own 
living  to  make?  Where  could  he  find  associates  even  were 
he  a  commoner?  Though  a  good  fellow  enough,  what  there 
is  of  him,  he  is  scarcely  a  thing  for  a  Kitchener  or  a  Lloyd 
George  to  bow  down  to  or  worship,  even  though  it  be  but 
hollow  hypocrisy  on  the  part  of  all  concerned. 

Yet    when    this    worthless    sprig    of    English    royalty 


24  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

crosses  the  Channel,  battle-ships  must  guard  his  sacred 
person,  while  my  Lord  Kitchener  is  given  a  hollow  title 
and  sent  forth  to  die  alone. 

Even  while  her  bungling  rulers  were  fighting  her  colon 
ies  over-sea,  the  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man,  as  promul 
gated  in  America  in  1776  and  in  France  in  1798,  vindicated 
by  revolt  from  arbitrary  rule,  took  root  as  well  in  the 
hearts  of  the  English  people,  who  began  to  appreciate  the 
incompatibility  between  a  system  based  on  the  will  of  the 
people,  and  a  system  based  on  a  will  superior  to  the  will  of 
the  people,  yet  still  upholding  in  outward  show  forms  and 
furbelows  which  as  fundamentals  they  abhorred. 

In  England  and  Germany  we  find  the  extremes  of  in 
herited  kingcraft;  in  one  a  coward  cringing  behind  petti 
coats  at  home,  in  the  other  a  fiend  of  hell  going  up  and 
down  the  earth  seeking  whom  he  may  devour.  And  behind 
each  a  nation  of  gaping  innocents  bellowing  glory !  Indeed, 
such  is  the  influence  of  rulership  upon  the  rabble  that  even 
in  the  United  States  there  are  men,  and  women,  who  will 
throw  up  their  hats  for  Woodrow  Wilson. 

Besides  the  Apis  bull  of  Memphis  the  ancient  Egyptians, 
prominent  in  paganism,  held  in  reverence  the  cat  and  the 
dog.  Why? 

Besides  their  puppet  of  a  king  the  modern  Englishmen, 
prominent  in  Christianism,  hold  in  reverence  a  great  array 
of  dukes  and  things  which  they  are  pleased  to  call  royalty 
and  nobility,  and  who,  with  their  stolid  British  stare,  are 
supported  in  idleness  by  the  labor  of  the  poor.  Why  ? 

It  is  a  social  rather  than  a  political  incumbus,  the 
thoughtful  Britisher  of  sound  sense  will  tell  you,  who  is 
held  in  contempt  by  these  drones  whom  he  helps  to  support ; 
whereat  one  would  think  if  English  high  society  needs  such 
hollow  humbug  to  make  it  respectable  that  it  is  in  a  poor 
way  indeed.  But  as  they  all  seem  to  like  it,  and  are  willing 
to  pay  for  it,  outsiders  need  not  complain ;  though  but  for 
the  smudge  on  the  bodies  politic  and  social,  we  might  call 


APOCALYPTIC  25 

their  government  the  best  in  the  world,  and  their  people 
the  best  people, — were  it  not  for  Boston. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  republics,  like  other  forms  of 
government,  are  of  various  qualities  and  grades.  There 
are  no  fixed  conditions  by  which  history  differentiates  re 
publicanism  from  oligarchy  or  aristocratic  rule.  For  ex 
ample  the  two  joint  kings  of  republican  Sparta  might  com 
mand  the  armies  and  perform  public  sacrifices,  but  their 
power  was  restricted  by  a  senate  and  assembly  of  the  peo 
ple,  so  that  Sparta  might  properly  be  called  an  oligarchic 
republic  under  the  guise  of  a  monarchy. 

The  affairs  of  Athens  were  at  first  managed  by  a  privi 
leged  class  of  nobles,  and  so  was,  in  fact,  a  government  by 
an  aristocracy  rather  than  by  a  democracy,  though  called  a 
republic.  For  more  than  a  century  after  the  expulsion  of 
the  kings,  Eome  was  an  autocratic  republic  rather  than  a 
government  by  the  people ;  and  so  on. 

We  are  young  yet,  though  none  of  the  republics  that 
came  before  or  after  us  possessed  the  power  and  wealth 
which  we  now  enjoy,  or  might  enjoy  under  proper  man 
agement. 

Coming  again  to  the  question  of  relative  duration,  it 
might  be  well  to  consider  the  soundness  and  strength  of 
the  rule  under  the  Doges  of  Venice,  the  tribunes  and  con 
suls  of  Rome,  and  the  archons  of  Athens  and  compare  it 
with  the  sort  of  government  given  us  by  certain  of  our 
presidents,  their  associates  and  supporters,  and  so  deter 
mined  which  of  them  all  is  best  entitled  to  the  distinction 
such  as  we  love  to  apply  to  Mexico,  as  being  a  republic  in 
name  only. 

Are  we  becoming  already  like  republican  Rome,  deca 
dent,  demagogic,  effeminate,  immoral,  luxurious,  debased? 

There  are  worse  things  than  war  in  this  world. 
Toleration  of  the  rape  of  Belgium  were  worse. 
A  cowardly  or  dishonorable  peace  were  worse. 
National  dry-rot  as  in   China;  national  pusillanimity 


26  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

as  in  Luxembourg;  national  nonentity  as  in  Spain  were 
worse. 

A  premature  peace  in  Europe,  such  as  would  leave  Prus 
sian  rulers  and  professors  masters  of  the  world,  were  worse. 

Monkeying  in  Mexico,  such  as  the  United  States  seems 
to  delight  in,  is  more  to  be  deplored  than  would  be  a  war 
which  would  bring  anarchy  to  a  quick  finish. 

Humble  submission  to  Japan,  who  is  undermining  our 
industries,  flooding  our  country  with  new-born  Asiatic  citi 
zens,  impudently  ordering  us  out  of  China,  and  dictating 
to  us  our  home  and  foreign  policies  is  worse  than  would  be 
a  war  with  Japan. 

No  humane  person  will  suggest  war  as  a  pastime,  such 
as  the  Mexicans  delight  in;  no  sane  person  will  under  any 
circumstances  advocate  unnecessary  war,  with  all  its  hor 
rors  and  suffering,  such  as  Germany  has  brought  upon 
Europe ;  but  where  all  at  best  are  so  soon  to  die,  were  it  not 
better  that  half  the  nation  should  die  prematurely  than  that 
all  should  become  stalemated  or  disgraced? 

Old  things  are  passing  away,  all  things  are  becoming 
new.  Although  out  of  the  womb  of  time  fresh  wickedness 
with  fresh  righteousness  is  evolved,  yet  in  the  end  the  good 
that  has  been  done  remains  while  the  evil  disappears. 

There  is  a  new  departure  in  religious  interpretations, 
pointing  toward  a  new  ethical  internationalism.  New  rid 
dles  are  ever  arising  for  solution,  in  diplomacy  as  in  all 
human  affairs,  since  Machiavelli  assumed  the  role  of  Christ 
as  our  teacher. 

We  see  in  ourselves,  for  example,  a  great  nation  too 
timid  even  to  think  of  fighting  for  our  rights,  while  sub 
mitting  to  insult  and  imposition.  We  see  in  old  Asia  a 
nation  too  sensitive  to  receive  instruction  in  good  manners, 
but  not  too  sensitive  to  loot  a  neighbor  or  rob  a  nation.  We 
see  in  Mexico  a  nest  of  hyenas  snarling  and  slashing  each 
other  for  the  mere  love  of  it.  We  see  in  Europe  all  Chris 
tendom  gone  mad,  but  not  for  Christ ;  all  the  saints  of  the 


APOCALYPTIC  27 

church,  all  the  disciples  of  our  Lord,  all  the  followers  of 
the  meek  and  lowly  Nazarene,  who  returneth  good  for  evil, 
who  bless  their  enemies  and  pray  for  those  that  despitefully 
use  them,  with  a  kultur  so  high  as  to  be  out  of  sight,  and 
so  deep  that  even  the  profundity  of  the  learned  doctors 
cannot  fathom  it,  and  all  for  less  than  nothing. 

Since  man  is  becoming  so  proficient  in  many  things  it 
is  somewhat  remarkable  that  so  little  advance  is  made  in 
self-government.  Wherefore,  in  view  of  our  unhappy  state 
of  mind  and  delirious  condition,  were  it  not  well  to  try  a 
change,  a  different  sort  of  government.  We  seem  ready 
just  now  to  indulge  in  little  real  war  on  our  own  account. 
Well,  blood-letting  is  good  for  congestion,  and  we  have  in 
our  organism  plenty  of  bad  blood,  and  to  spare. 

Lloyd  George  proposed  that  immediately  after  the  war 
an  imperial  conference  should  be  called,  with  representa 
tives  from  all  the  British  dominions,  to  consider  the  govern 
ment  of  the  empire.  Let  us  hope  that  among  other  meas 
ures  the  total  elimination  of  that  most  farcical  and  absurd 
system  of  inherited  rulership  with  its  claptrap  of  royalty 
and  titled  nobility,  and  the  retirement  of  that  laughing 
stock  of  the  world,  King  George,  may  be  accomplished. 

War  and  wickedness  are  aids  to  progress  no  less  im 
portant  and  effectual  than  peace  and  righteousness.  The 
United  States  can  count  but  two  important  wars  in  its  his 
tory;  wrhat  would  we  be  not  having  had  them?  First,  a 
colony  of  England  like  Canada;  and  but  for  the  second 
one,  a  nation  disrupted,  broken  into  fragments  by  civil 
strife. 

As  to  a  different  form  of  government  for  ourselves,  it 
may  some  day  be  a  subject  for  consideration.  Great  and 
glorious  as  we  are,  we  are  not  all  of  us  altogether  perfect. 
Taf t  is  not  perfect ;  he  never  was  perfect  save  at  his  boyhood 
home,  as  justice  in  fair  round  belly  with  good  capon  lined, 
with  eyes  severe  and  beard  of  formal  cut,  full  of  wise  saws 
and  modern  instances,  as  Jaques  hath  it.  We  cannot  call 
Woodrow  Wilson  perfect,  but  rather  pluperfect,  perfect  at 


28  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

the  Baltimore  convention,  more  perfect  still  as  pedagogue 
than  as  president. 

Both  of  these  men  were  at  the  first  deemed  straightfor 
ward  and  sincere,  whatever  their  ability  might  prove  to  be ; 
how  are  they  regarded  now  in  these  respects? 

Elihu  Root  is  nearly  but  not  entirely  perfect;  were  he 
so,  were  his  sapiency  equal  to  his  reputation,  and  the  wreck 
ing  of  his  party  at  the  Chicago  convention  which  gave  us 
the  two  democratic  administrations  could  be  forgotten, — 
but  for  this  one  brilliant,  but  most  unholy  achievement  he 
might  now  be  president,  and  a  very  good  president,  too. 

Another  proposition  which  may  here  be  laid  down  as  not 
inconsistent  with  fact  is  that  the  chief  executive  of  a  great 
republic  should  be  distinguished  for  something  besides 
academic  learning,  that  he  should  be  something  different 
from  an  old  war-horse  on  one  side,  or  a  hide-bound  college 
professor  on  the  other;  that  properly  to  manage  the  vast 
economic  and  financial  interests  of  the  United  States  he 
should  possess,  besides  sound  sense  and  high  integrity,  some 
practical  knowledge  of  affairs,  some  business  experience 
such  as  would  enable  him  to  give  the  people  a  thrifty  and 
prosperous  administration. 

A  man  of  affairs  does  not  engage  a  person  to  look  after 
his  business  without  taking  some  note  as  to  his  capabilities ; 
the  lawyer  and  the  doctor  must  be  specially  educated  for 
it  before  being  permitted  to  practice  their  profession,  but 
it  seems  to  be  the  last  thing  thought  of  in  choosing  a  man 
ager  for  the  vast  interests  of  the  United  States.  How  fit 
was  Grant  to  run  the  government,  when  before  the  war  he 
could  not  manage  a  corner  grocery,  and  after  the  war  must 
make  a  failure  over  a  little  book-publishing. 

As  for  Mr.  Wilson,  perhaps  after  going  to  school  to  him 
self  for  a  few  terms,  no  one  else  being  able  to  teach  him 
anything,  he  may  learn  something,  though  at  no  small  cost 
to  the  republic.  What  we  most  greatly  need  is  a  school 
for  the  training  of  aspirants  for  the  presidency.  Southern 


APOCALYPTIC  29 

chivalry  is  never  ashamed  of  ignorance,  as  witness  the 
story  of  high  finance  in  old-time  Washington  they  love  to 
tell.  Said  Webster  to  Calhoun,  "Endorse  my  note,  and 
with  two  such  names  I  can  get  the  cash  at  the  bank. ' '  Said 
Calhoun,  "I  will,  if  you  will  endorse  mine." 

Boasting  of  his  ignorance  and  inexperience,  the  present 
incumbent  once  said,  "I  never  was  in  business  and  there 
fore  I  have  none  of  the  prejudices  of  business,"  and  he 
might  have  added  that  he  had  none  of  the  common  sense, 
of  business.  It  was  indeed  true  that  he  could  know  little 
or  nothing  of  business  judging  from  his  management  of  the 
business  of  the  United  States.  While  praising  himself  for 
his  ignorance  of  business,  he  formulates  the  tariff  upon 
such  unbusiness-like  basis  that  many  food  products  can  be 
purchased  in  the  warring  areas  of  Europe  for  less  than  in 
the  United  States. 

Illustrating  the  ill  effects  of  such  ignorance  the  un 
known  writer  elsewhere  quoted  says:  "My  neighbor,  who 
was  the  possessor  of  fifty  thousand  dollars,  bought  a  piece  of 
land  for  eight  thousand,  and  built  on  it  a  house  which  cost 
him  nearly  all  his  remaining  fortune.  He  seemed  to  think 
that  the  money  he  had  changed  into  stone  walls,  fine  carv 
ings,  and  costly  furniture  would  still  be  productive,  would 
yield  him  an  income.  When  he  had  thus  improved,  as  he 
phrased  it,  he  claimed  that  it  was  worth  at  least  sixty  thou 
sand  dollars;  that  is,  he  had  spent  most  of  his  money  and 
thought  he  was  worth  much  more  than  when  he  began.  He 
has  some  high-priced  European  paintings,  but  he  cannot  eat 
them,  and  as  he  has  nothing  but  his  house  and  grounds  he 
has  had  to  stint  his  children  in  their  education  and  even  in 
their  clothes  and  food.  He  wishes  to  sell  his  property,  but 
thinks  it  still  worth  fifty  thousand  dollars,  though  it  would 
not  sell  for  one-third  of  that  amount." 

This  is  a  good  representation  of  the  course  of  multitudes 
of  men  drawn  or  forced  into  business  from  the  learned  pro 
fessions,  that  is  professors  learned  in  everything  except  in 
the  practical  affairs  of  life. 


30  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

For  running  the  business  of  government,  utilizing  its 
resources,  managing  of  its  finances,  and  exercising  thrift 
and  economy  in  expenditures,  as  before  said,  men  of  busi 
ness  ability  and  experience  should  be  employed,  not  some 
professor  of  something,  or  a  successful  general,  or  a  court 
judge  wedded  to  technicalities  and  precedents,  or  a  politi 
cal  hack,  and  least  of  all  a  fanatic,  or  a  sectarian.  Official 
routine  is  a  business,  and  should  be  conducted  like  any 
other  business,  on  sound  common  sense  and  practical  prin 
ciples. 

For  the  progressive  man  of  affairs  it  is  easier  to  do 
the  work  himself  than  to  find  others  to  do  it  for  him.  But 
one  man  with  one  head  and  two  hands  does  not  go  far  in  a 
great  factory ;  to  achieve  anything  out  of  the  ordinary  one 
must  be  able  to  utilize  the  services  of  others. 

From  first  to  last  there  have  not  been  more  than  three 
presidents  of  the  United  States  up  to  the  average  business 
man  in  business  ability,  and  but  few  executive  officers  with 
good  executive  ability.  Artifice,  however,  with  erudition, 
finds  many  opportunities  for  the  southern  states  to  vote 
northern  money  for  their  extravagant  expenditures,  most  of 
the  large  fortunes  which  pay  income  taxes  being  held  in  the 
north.  Millions  of  money  are  every  year  squandered  on  non- 
essentials,  and  taxes  increased  correspondingly  to  cover  the 
outlay.  A  very  considerable  war  could  be  carried  on  with 
the  money  thus  wasted. 

In  consigning  them  to  their  final  rest  were  it  not  in 
spiring  to  future  generations  if  written  on  the  sepulchers 
of  certain  of  our  great  ones,  great  in  inefficiency  if  in  noth 
ing  else,  "Here  lies  one  but  for  whom  the  world  would 
be  better  off  had  he  never  been  born."  "Here  is  stored 
defunct  republicanism,  done  to  death  in  the  house  of  its 
friends,  and  by  its  brightest  stars,  who  had  they  been  hon 
est  had  been  honored  to  their  full  heart's  desire." 

For  our  latter-day  administration  will  ever  stand  con 
spicuous  for  doing  the  things  it  ought  not  to  have  done  and 
leaving  undone  the  things  it  should  have  done.  It  should 


APOCALYPTIC  31 

have  kept  faith  with  the  people ;  should  have  kept  the  prom 
ises  it  made  at  the  Baltimore  convention ;  should  have  pro 
tested  at  the  proper  time  against  the  piracy  of  Germany  in 
Belgium;  should  have  refused  greedy  England  special  ad 
vantages  in  the  use  of  the  Panama  canal;  should  have  re 
pelled  with  scorn  the  attempt  of  Colombia  at  blackmail  in 
intimating  indirection  on  the  part  of  the  two  previous  presi 
dents  of  the  United  States  in  regard  to  the  Panama  pur 
chase;  should  have  protected  our  interests  on  the  Pacific 
instead  of  turning  everything  over  to  Japan  at  the  instance 
of  rapacious  labor  leaders,  chief  among  whom  was  a  mem 
ber  of  the  president's  cabinet. 

Nor  is  the  outlook  for  the  future  much  better.  Unwar 
ranted  extravagance  still  attends  every  movement.  Mil 
lions  are  wasted  by  men  unaccustomed  to  money  and  know 
ing  not  its  value.  New  projects  are  started  while  the  old 
promises  remain  unfulfilled. 

During  the  year  1915,  $159,000,000  was  paid  in  pen 
sions,  to  three-fourths  of  which  the  recipients  had  no  just 
or  reasonable  claim.  Millions  were  squandered  in  Mexico, 
and  nothing  accomplished,  and  something  more  than  mil 
lions  was  thrown  away  in  assisting  Japan  to  the  supremacy 
of  the  Pacific.  Three-fourths  of  the  printing  paid  for  by 
the  people  were  better  never  done,  or  if  done  the  worthless 
documents  were  better  never  sent  out.  The  Congressional 
Record,  instead  of  a  plain  concise  statement  of  public  pro 
ceedings  is  a  political  refuse  van  into  which  is  pitched  ex 
traneous  stuff  as  fodder  for  election  purposes,  dry  speeches 
to  gratify  the  vanity  of  ill-endowed  members,  extracts  from 
books  and  newspapers,  and  tons  of  other  worthless  printed 
matter  which  were  neither  wanted  nor  read  overloads  the 
mails,  thus  incurring  further  expense  to  the  government  in 
the  delivery.  Taxes  are  doubled  and  then  doubled  again, 
the  people  groaning  under  the  infliction. 

What  said  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  not  long  since? 
"We  have  a  presidential  campaign,  which  is  traditionally 
unfavorable  to  business.  Our  greatest  single  business  con- 


32  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

cern,  the  railroad  system,  is  rather  glum  over  the  eight-hour 
law,  as  to  the  ultimate  effects  of  which  it  made  many  som 
ber  predictions.  "We  have  fifty  billion  dollars  spent  on  the 
world  war,  and  the  customers  who  normally  take  three-quar 
ters  of  our  exports  are  doing  their  best  to  ruin  one  another. 
We  have  also  a  vigorous  stock  boom,  predicated  upon  hopes 
that  an  era  of  still  greater  prosperity  lies  ahead  of  us.  We 
have  weightier  augury  of  still  higher  prosperity  in  the  state 
of  the  whole  iron  and  steel  trade,  and  of  manufacturers  in 
general,  with  pretty  nearly  every  plant  that  can  turn  out  a 
vendible  article  working  at  capacity  and  choked  with  or 
ders  which  will  keep  it  busy  for  many  months. 

' '  And  the  proximate  motive  of  this  stock  boom  is  noth 
ing  else  than  a  belief  that  the  war  will  continue  indefinitely. 
For  two  years  we  were  dubious  about  our  war  prosperity ; 
we  said  it  must  end  soon.  But  the  great  flood  of  new  war 
orders  that  set  in  this  summer  and  shows  no  abatement  at 
this  writing  seems  to  overbear  caution.  The  ticker  says  that 
Europe  will  go  on  with  this  destruction  indefinitely,  and  we 
shall  get  so  rich  out  of  it  that  all  former  eras  of  prosperity 
in  this  or  any  nation's  history  will  become  insignificant  in 
comparison.  American  diplomacy  is  not  particularly  well 
equipped  for  any  task.  The  unfortunate  clause  in  the  con 
stitution  that  brings  the  senate  in  treaty  making  is  an  ob 
stacle.  The  practice  of  handing  out  diplomatic  posts  as  a 
reward  for  party  service,  or  as  a  compliment  to  some  admir 
able  gentleman  with  no  diplomatic  training,  is  another. 
Whatever  becomes  of  this  economic  program,  our  relations 
with  the  rest  of  the  world  are  bound  to  be  increasingly  im 
portant.  It  is  high  time  for  a  keener  public  interest  in  the 
state  department,  with  unmistakable  expressions  of  disap 
proval  for  anybody  who  regards  it  mostly  as  a  roost  for  de 
serving  democrats  or  deserving  republicans. 

1 '  Perhaps  you  have  noticed  that  there  has  been  less  talk 
of  peace  lately  than  at  any  time  since  war  began.  Perhaps 
there  is  less  wish  for  peace.  In  more  than  two  years,  not 
only  has  the  world  acquired  an  enormous  vested  interest 


APOCALYPTIC  33 

in  war,  but  its  mind  has  become  habituated  to  war ;  so  that 
now  the  idea  of  peace  involves  something  like  the  same  dis 
turbance  and  unknowable  change  the  idea  of  war  formerly 
involved.  Last  summer  Wall  street  felt  a  bit  lumpish 
because  war  orders  already  in  hand  were  running  out  and 
few  new  ones  were  coming  in,  which  suggested  a  radical 
disturbance  of  the  satus  quo.  Since  then  a  new  bellig 
erent  buying  wave  has  appeared,  and  the  street  is  notably 
cheerful.  All  the  machinery,  the  world  over,  is  adjusted 
to  war.  Peace  means  readjustment,  more  or  less  disloca 
tion  and  confusion,  much  uncertainty.  Certainly  though 
the  war  has  been  much  bloodier  and  costly  than  anybody 
dreamed,  there  is  not  now  the  violent  reaction  against  it 
that  there  was  when  it  began. 

"This  is  not  particularly  immoral,  but  an  inevitable 
product  of  the  condition.  In  September,  1914,  a  predic 
tion  that  the  war  would  last  two  years  provoked  horrors. 
So  monstrous  a  calamity  to  mankind  seemed  unbearable. 
Nowadays  acute  observers  predict  it  will  last  two  years 
more,  and  this  is  received  quite  calmly.  With  new  bellig 
erents  coming  in,  the  cost,  in  men  and  money,  tends  steadily 
to  rise.  Two  years  more  would  bring  it  up  at  least  to  eighty 
billion  dollars  and  a  mortality  toll  that  would  stun  a 
world  at  peace.  But  the  world  accepts  the  prospect  sto 
ically.  Savage  experience  has  inured  it  to  billions  of 
wasted  money  and  millions  of  dead." 

That  this  nation  is  subject  every  four  years  to  a  re 
newal  of  the  quality  of  rule  it  has  had  during  the  two 
terms  last  past  is  one  of  its  weakest  characteristics. 

The  apostles  of  peace  have  good  hearts  but  weak  heads. 
Some  resort  to  prayer;  not  that  they  expect  an  answer, 
but  the  thought  is  comforting,  that  with  their  advice  the 
Almighty  can  stop  the  war  if  he  will ;  some  pose  for  effect. 
Their  comfort  in  prayer,  the  comfort  of  pope,  preacher, 
and  professor,  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  have  sent  up  to 
the  throne  of  grace  some  pertinent  facts  hitherto  unknown 
to  omniscience,  and  that  the  sound  arguments  attending 

2 


34  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

the  humble  petitions  must  convince  the  Almighty  of  the 
errors  of  his  ways  and  induce  him  to  change  them. 

These  good  people  would  thus  revise  the  work  of  the 
Creator  and  improve  upon  the  edicts  of  heaven,  who  know 
better  than  he  how  to  make  and  run  a  world,  who  would 
tell  him  of  himself  more  than  he  ever  knew,  who  would 
induce  him  to  complete  his  work  or  change  his  plans,  are 
beside  the  situation.  They  do  not  read  aright  either  his 
tory,  or  religion,  or  human  nature.  Man  is  made  a  fight 
ing  animal ;  he  always  has  fought  and  he  always  will  fight. 
Until  the  economy  of  God  is  changed  human  nature  will 
not  change.  Christ  thought  to  change  it  but  he  did  not. 
God  seems  disposed  to  let  things  run  on  as  usual — seems 
to  regard  the  present  glorious  slaughter  in  Europe  with 
complacency.  Otherwise,  if  what  we  are  told  of  him  is 
true,  he  would  stop  it,  for  he  is  said  to  be  all- wise,  all- 
merciful,  and  all-powerful. 

The  republican  party,  purified  to  some  extent  by  Roose 
velt,  became  more  corrupt  than  ever  under  Taft,  while  the 
democratic  party  under  Wilson  reached  the  limit.  Then 
came  a  new  crop  of  republican  patriots  to  the  front,  some 
with  more  money  than  brains,  and  some  with  neither 
money  nor  brains,  making  fools  of  themselves  and  a  fool 
of  their  country,  and  so  the  land  lapsed  into  another  dark 
age  of  Wilson. 

Ordinarily  to  assume  that  the  actuating  motive  on 
entering  office  is  the  public  good  rather  than  personal  ad 
vantage  would  seem  puerile.  The  public  good  is  paraded 
for  outside  show  to  cover  the  true  motive  of  personal  ad 
vantage.  One's  self  first,  one's  country  last,  is  the  actual 
inward  impulse  that  overrules  politics  and  statesmanship, 
all  office-seeking  and  office-holding  politicians,  high  and 
low,  in  the  United  States  this  day,  allowing  for  exceptions 
enough  to  prove  the  rule. 

As  to  a  different  form  of  government  for  ourselves; 
should  we  invent  one,  or  adopt  something  already  in  vogue? 


APOCALYPTIC  35 

There  is  the  rule  of  the  British  denominated  good,  though 
it  has  neither  head  nor  tail,  the  place  for  a  king  being 
filled  by  a  society  effigy  in  men's  clothes. 

Kaiser  kultur  with  militarism  will  not  do,  though  high 
as  heaven  in  its  exaltation  and  bottomless  in  its  profundity 
while  attempting  to  reconcile  the  teachings  of  Christ  with 
the  doings  of  the  devil.  Yet  it  suits  the  German  people 
who  are  made  specially  to  fit  the  condition.  As  a  German 
servant-girl  in  America  was  overheard  to  converse  with 
a  companion,  "You  must  not  say  der  kaiser  vil  vin;  you 
must  say  der  kaiser  has  vin ;  for  we  love  our  kaiser,  though 
dey  kill  my  two  brudders." 

Nor  would  we  enjoy  the  rule  of  the  Mikado  on  his 
turtle-back  island  with  his  incarnated  angels  capering 
around  him,  even  though  he  be  a  veritable  god  in  an 
atmosphere  of  the  unregenerate,  when  the  kaiser's  role  is 
only  an  imitation  of  heathenism. 

For  a  nation  of  fanatics,  a  people  of  unbalanced  minds 
taught  by  doctors  and  professors  of  the  unknowable,  kaiser 
rule  is  as  good  as  any.  France  also  is  doing  well  since 
she  has  cleared  her  skirts  of  a  worthless  aristocracy.  Eng 
land,  with  perhaps  the  best  government  of  all,  and  founded 
upon  the  soundest  principles,  is  carried  out  along  lines 
of  humbug  and  snobbery,  the  doctrines  of  inherited  right 
of  royalty  and  rulership,  nullified  by  the  acts  and  inde 
pendence  of  the  real  rulers,  with  the  attendant  horde  of 
titled  drones  called  the  nobility,  above  occupation  of  any 
useful  sort  yet  not  above  being  fed  and  clothed  by  those 
they  ostensibly  despise, — this  with  law-made  religion,  which 
is  no  religion  whatever,  is  humbug,  while  the  pretended 
superiority  of  the  worthless  class  is  snobbery.  Every  in- 
tellligent  Britisher,  even  though  swayed  by  the  vanity  of 
title,  realizes  this,  and  though  he  may  feel  it  incumbent 
on  him  to  keep  standing  the  royal  house  of  cards,  finds 
in  his  heart  small  respect  for  a  monarch  who  speaks  in 
parliament  as  he  is  told,  and  while  talking  loudly  and 
largely  of  his  army,  his  navy,  and  the  rest,  is  of  such 


36  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

inferior  construction  that  in  riding  forth  to  battle  he  can 
not  sit  upon  his  horse. 

Yet  withal  the  ablest  men  of  England,  industrial  or 
political,  are  usually  honest  and  patriotic,  while  in  the 
United  States  individuals  of  that  class  are  too  often 
schemers,  tricksters,  swindlers,  their  superior  capabilities 
leading  them  into  paths  of  indiscretion. 

We  do  not  invest  our  best  men  with  office,  why?  Be 
cause  our  best  men  do  not  so  hunger  and  thirst  after  polit 
ical  rule  as  to  come  forward  and  present  personal  claims 
against  some  thousands  of  others  equally  worthy  and 
competent,  or  go  crying  throughout  the  country  their  supe 
rior  merits  into  the  ears  of  their  fellow  citizens.  Nomi 
nations  are  made  by  committees  or  self -constituted  boards 
of  political  bosses,  who  look  about  among  tricky  lawyers 
and  so-called  statesmen  with  an  elastic  conscience,  labor- 
leading  exploiters  of  the  workingman  and  Irish  agitators, 
persons  from  whom  are  easily  secured  promises  to  be  as 
easily  broken. 

Then  the  fault  is  with  our  good  citizens  themselves? 
Exactly.  But  the  reign  of  evil  always  in  time  comes  to 
an  end,  else  the  world  would  settle  back  into  its  original 
state  of  nothingness.  To  secure  that  result  there  usually 
comes  to  the  front  some  one  man  to  save  the  people.  A 
government  that  will  harbor  a  demagogism  superior  to 
itself  and  of  which  it  stands  in  constant  fear,  ignoring  its 
frauds  and  impositions  and  submitting  to  its  insults  is 
indeed  rather  an  excuse  for  than  an  example  of  genuine 
republicanism. 

Another  of  our  peculiar  latter-day  policies  is  to  aban 
don  the  Philippines,  the  safeguard  of  our  influence  and 
interests  in  eastern  Asia,  and  place  these  and  other  islands 
where  they  will  be  an  easy  prey  to  the  rapacity  of  Japan. 
Wherefore,  as  our  solons  at  Washington  have  done  every 
thing  else  which  they  promised  not  to  do,  and  as  we  have 
to  pay  so  much  for  war  in  gold  and  human  lives  they 
seem  disposed  now  to  let  us  have  some  war,  something  to 


APOCALYPTIC  37 

show  for  our  money,  and  also  that  we  may  feel  that  we 
are  men  and  not  suffragettes. 

To  harbor  fear  is  cowardly ;  and  as  for  unpreparedness, 
in  less  than  two  years  England  recruited  and  trained  five 
million  officers  and  men  before  the  introduction  of  com 
pulsory  service,  which  for  the  United  States  to  accomplish 
in  proportion  to  population  would  be  equivalent  to  raising 
an  army  of  fourteen  million. 

During  the  last  two  years  the  British  army  has  been 
increased  eighteen-fold  and  the  British  navy  two-and-a- 
half  fold;  British  industry  has  been  placed  upon  a  war 
footing  and  the  output  of  munitions  has  been  increased 
more  than  thirty  thousand  per  cent.  The  finances  of  the 
empire  have  been  mobilized,  and  the  imperial  governent 
has  sustained  the  money-power  of  the  grand  alliance  by 
loans  to  her  allies  and  the  dominions  aggregating  $800,- 
000,000;  while  the  British  navy  has  kept  open -the  seas  for 
the  transport  of  money,  material,  munitions,  and  .men 
from  every  quarter  of  the  globe. 

In  one  year  of  peace  Great  Britain  spends  173,000,000 
sovereigns ;  in  one  year  of  war  she  spends  2,382,000,000. 

The  munitioning  of  the  forces  led  to  a  marvelous  effort 
in  output  and  organization.  The  nation  nationalized  its 
resources  for  this  purpose.  Before  the  war  there  were  three 
national  factories  working  for  the  army;  there  were  in 
1916  ninety-five,  and  more  than  4,000  controlled  estab 
lishments.  The  best  business  brains  of  the  country  con 
tributed  to  the  common  stock.  The  trade  unions  waved 
many  of  their  rules.  Women  of  every  station  became  mu 
nition  workers.  Exclusive  of  the  men  employed  on  muni 
tions  for  the  navy,  and  exclusive  also  of  the  miners,  were 
nearly  one  and  a  quarter  million  workmen  engaged  in 
making  munitions.  So  the  English  government  reports. 

If  this  is  true,  and  if  our  resources  equal  or  exceed 
those  of  Great  Britain,  why  need  we  be  so  afraid.  Un 
questionably  as  at  present  guarded,  falling  on  us  sud 
denly  Japan  could  capture  the  Philippine  and  Hawaiian 


38  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

islands,  and  inflict  serious  damage  on  the  Pacific  coast; 
but  plenty  of  submarines  can  safely  enough  guard  our 
coasts,  islands  and  main  land,  from  any  force  from  any 
quarter  ever  likely  to  be  brought  against  us.  Besides, 
Japan  would  lose  her  highly  prized  commercial  supremacy ; 
she  would  gain  nothing  by  war  with  us,  and  would  have 
dearly  to  pay  for  it  in  the  end. 

The  Japanese  at  the  Hawaiian  islands  expect  war  with 
the  United  States  soon  and  are  preparing  for  it.  The 
large  island  of  Hawaii  is  occupied  almost  entirely  by  Jap 
anese,  having  a  male  population  of  25,000  and  a  plentiful 
supply  of  women.  They  control  labor  on  the  plantations 
and  trade  in  the  shops.  Yet,  while  thinking  much  of  war, 
they  talk  only  of  peace.  Already  the  Japanese  born  there 
have  organized  the  American  Japanese  association  for 
promoting  Americanism  among  Japan-American  citizens. 
They  wish  to  be  our  brothers,  they  say,  and  work  side 
by  side  with  us  for  welfare  of  the  territory  of  Hawaii, 
which  surely  is  kind  on  their  part.  Whence  it  appears 
that  Nippon  entertains  other  plans  for  taking  over  the 
United  States  than  killing  off  the  inhabitants. 

A  firm  policy,  whether  in  regard  to  Mexico,  Japan,  or 
Europe  need  not  necessarily  lead  to  war.  In  fact  it  were 
more  likely  to  keep  us  out  of  war.  Shilly  shally  breeds  only 
contempt;  it  does  not  pay. 

No  procedure  could  have  been  more  pedagogic,  more 
damaging  to  California  and  the  Pacific  coast  than  that 
which  sent  Secretary  Bryan  to  plead  the  cause  of  the 
Asiatics  before  the  California  legislature.  Nothing  could 
have  been  done  so  surely  to  excite  pagan  arrogance  and 
invite  war  as  this  show  of  cowardice  and  the  desire  to 
placate  regardless  of  the  merit  of  the  case.  A  proper 
person  in  office  at  Washington  at  the  time  would  have  sent 
some  gunboats  instead  of  his  grandmother. 

California  would  be  better  off  had  Woodrow  Wilson  re 
mained  at  Princeton,  while  the  world  could  get  along  on  a 
pinch  without  Germany,  Japan,  or  other  predatory  peoples. 


CHAPTER  III 

INFELICITIES   OP  POSSESSION 

INVENTIONS  and  the  intensity  of  progress  character 
ize  these  latter  days  to  such  an  extent  that  the  mind 
becomes  bewildered  in  their  contemplation.  The  utiliza 
tion  of  oil  and  electricity  and  the  application  of  steel  have 
revolutionized  society  and  upturned  civilization.  Home 
living  and  office  work  have  taken  a  new  departure.  Busi 
ness  men  no  longer  live  in  modest  dwellings,  walking  or 
using  the  street  cars  on  going  out,  but  they  must  have  for 
a  home  a  fine  house-front  with  a  hole  cut  it  in  for  an  auto 
mobile,  or  more  often  give  up  house-keeping  and  take  to 
one  of  the  many  apartment  houses  which  are  constantly 
being  built  for  them. 

Half  of  the  routine  work  of  the  town,  both  domestic 
and  commercial,  is  performed  by  the  telephone.  The  play 
houses  are  put  out  of  business,  motion  picture  shows  tak 
ing  their  place.  The  daughter  of  the  house  need  no  longer 
pound  her  piano;  a  piece  of  machinery  does  the  work  for 
her.  The  dog  still  barks;  the  smart  society  woman  leads 
forth  her  bull-pup  for  his  constitutional,  but  the  horse  is 
in  a  measure  eliminated,  both  in  the  cities  and  on  the 
farms.  In  war  the  combatants  no  longer  stand  up  and 
fight  each  other  in  a  manly  sort  of  way,  but  crawl  around 
in  ditches  under  bellowing  machinery,  dropping  bombs 
from  air-ships  and  firing  explosives  from  under-water  craft. 

Alas!  for  the  days  of  chivalry,  for  barbed  wire  and 
stinking  gases  may  now  put  up  a  better  defense  than  honest 
steel  and  gunpowder.  But  they  are  grand  inventions, 
these  and  others,  and  show  how  the  race  is  advancing  in 

39 


40  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

humanism  aud  refinement;  for  with  rapid  fire  guns  more 
men  can  be  killed  in  fifteen  minutes  than  would  involve 
a  hard  day's  work  by  the  old  methods,  while  at  sea  with 
high  explosives  a  thousand  innocent  women  and  children 
may  be  sent  to  their  death  with  a  single  shot.  Is  it  not 
grand !  These  many  centuries  of  Solomon,  and  Plato,  and 
Christ  we  have  not  had  for  nothing. 

Says  Carl  R.  Fish  in  the  American  Historical  Review, 
"The  outbreak  of  the  great  war  in  1914  probably  sent 
tumbling  more  individual  philosophies  of  life  than  any 
other  event  in  history  in  so  short  a  time.  Millions  who 
did  not  know  that  they  had  a  philosophy  of  life  suddenly 
found  that  their  whole  way  of  viewing  their  relationships 
to  outside  things  had  been  changed  in  a  night.  In  Amer 
ica  two  fundamental  conceptions,  the  capacity  of  human 
nature  for  progressive  improvement  and  the  efficiency  of 
democratic  government  were  emphatically  challenged.  The 
small  minority  who  had  denied  them  claimed  recognition 
as  prophets,  many  of  those  who  had  doubted  joined  them, 
and  the  majority  became  doubters.  The  era  of  the  French 
revolution  and  the  Napoleonic  wars,  which  hung  in  the 
popular  imagination  as  the  greatest  of  world's  calamities, 
was  instantly  surpassed  by  the  scope  and  the  intensity  of 
the  new  struggle.  The  material  advances  of  a  hundred 
years  served  only  to  intensify  the  horror,  and  the  increased 
efficiency  of  governmental  organization  had  made  it  pos 
sible  to  wring  the  last  ounce  of  strength  from  every  indi 
vidual,  and  seemed  to  have  hardened  the  heart  of  the  com 
batants  to  endure  and  to  inflict  injuries  which  the  world 
supposed  it  had  outgrown." 

But  in  due  time  men  will  tire  of  killing  each  other, 
while  the  work  of  the  world  will  continue,  modified  first 
of  all  by  the  automobile  and  the  telephone.  For  the  man 
and  the  mistress  alike  must  have  their  machine,  even  if 
bread  goes  up  to  ten  cents  a  loaf. 

The  production  of  automobiles  in  this  country  during 
the  year  ending  August  1,  1916,  was  approximately  1,500,- 


INFELICITIES    OF    POSSESSION  41 

000  cars,  or  more  than  double  the  production  in  1915, 
which  was  700,000  cars.  In  1914  the  output  was  only 
515,000.  From  statistics  gathered  from  manufacturers, 
it  is  estimated  that  the  output  in  1917  may  run  to  2,500,000 
and  possibly  to  3,000,000  cars. 

More  and  more  the  forces  of  nature  are  brought  under 
the  dominion  of  man.  Stolid  matter  is  made  a  thing  of 
life.  The  human  voice  may  be  locked  up  in  a  box  and 
kept  fresh  for  a  thousand  years.  The  lightning  is  brought 
to  base  and  made  to  fetch  and  carry  human  thought.  By 
the  use  of  the  telegraph  distance  is  shortened,  space  anni 
hilated,  and  all  the  world  are  enabled  to  hold  converse  as 
if  in  one  assembly. 

The  development  of  photography  to  its  present  wide 
spread  use  and  the  invention  of  the  x-ray  have  resulted 
in  changes  patent  to  all.  Surgeons  no  longer  grope  blindly 
for  bullets,  or  set  broken  bones  in  a  more  or  less  haphazard 
fashion.  They  can  now  by  taking  photographs  before  and 
after  the  operation  proceed  with  almost  absolute  certainty. 
Physicians  will  even  fill  a  patient's  stomach  with  some 
mineral,  and  by  photographing  it  be  able  to  learn  what 
formerly  could  not  be  ascertained  without  a  capital  oper 
ation.  Dentists  will  even  have  x-ray  photographs  taken 
of  their  patients'  jaws  before  trying  to  straighten  their 
teeth. 

By  the  development  of  another  form  of  photography, 
the  whole  amusement  or  recreation  of  the  world  has  been 
changed.  Where  a  city  formerly  contained  ten  theatres 
and  vaudeville  houses,  it  now  has  perhaps  one  theatre  and 
ninety-nine  motion  picture  houses,  varying  in  size  from 
cheap  store  shows  seating  a  few  hundred  to  elaborate  audi 
toriums  of  greater  seating  capacity  and "  pretensions  than 
any  of  the  old  time  theatres.  The  public  like  motion 
pictures  because  it  gets  far  more  for  its  money  in  these 
exhibitions  than  it  used  to  get  in  legitimate  theatres.  Then, 


42  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

too,  one  need  not  understand  the  English  language  in 
order  to  enjoy  this  form  of  entertainment. 

While  this  has  been  a  sad  blow  to  many  of  the  so-called 
legitimate  actors,  it  has  been  nothing  short  of  a  god-send 
to  hundreds  of  entertainers  in  this  new  field.  A  number 
of  moving  picture  actors  are  receiving  salaries  of  over 
$50,000  a  year,  while  the  most  popular  one  of  all  who  a 
few  years  ago  was  glad  to  work  for  $50  a  week  is  now 
reported  to  be  receiving  a  salary  of  $500,000  a  year, — a 
sum  larger  than  those  of  the  president  of  the  United  States 
and  the  presidents  of  five  or  six  of  our  largest  railroad 
companies  combined. 

The  wonderful  inventions  in  machinery  for  the  manu 
facture  of  shoes  has  completely  revolutionized  that  indus 
try,  and  has  resulted  in  mechanisms  doing  tasks  of  the 
minutest  delicacy,  and  at  a  speed  so  great  that  the  eye 
cannot  follow  it.  Incidentally  the  perfection  of  these  nu 
merous  machines  gave  the  so-called  Shoe  Machinery  trust, 
for  a  time  at  least,  almost  a  monopoly  of  the  boot  and  shoe 
industry  of  the  United  States. 

Typewriting  and  adding  machines  have  worked  almost 
as  great  changes  in  the  offices  and  administrative  depart 
ments  of  business  as  have  telephones  in  all  walks  of  life, 
whether  commercial,  industrial,  social,  or  domestic.  In 
fact  it  would  be  difficult  for  the  average  man  or  woman 
to  realize  what  life  would  be  without  these  devices,  which 
we  use  every  day  without  giving  them  a  thought. 

As  the  typewriter  has  assumed  office  work,  so  has  the 
more  complex  and  ingenious  linotype  taken  possession  of 
the  printing  industry.  The  man  to  whom  the  world  owes 
the  suggestion  of  such  a  contrivance  was  Benjamin  Frank 
lin,  although  the  perfected  machine,  which  at  the  hands 
of  the  operator  upon  a  key-board  will  transform  molten 
metal  into  solid  lines  of  type  of  uniform  length,  ready 
for  printing,  bears  little  resemblance  to  the  far  less  ambi 
tious  conception  of  that  most  versatile  of  Americans. 

The   phonograph   by  which   the  human   voice   can   be 


INFELICITIES    OF    POSSESSION  43 

stored  for  centuries  and  be  then  reproduced  with  accu 
racy,  is  perhaps  no  more  and  no  less  remarkable  than  the 
transmission  of  messages  through  thousands  of  miles  of 
space  by  means  of  the  wireless  telegraph. 

The  great  field  of  electrical  development,  including  the 
harnessing  of  millions  of  horsepower  of  rivers  and  streams 
and  converting  the  same  into  light,  heat,  and  energy  for 
operating  electric  motors  of  all  descriptions,  has  attained 
its  present  dimensions  in  the  course  of  a  few  decades. 

Perhaps  the  most  far-reaching  of  all  modern  inven 
tions  or  developments  is  that  of  the  internal  combustion 
engine.  "We  have  these  in  all  forms  and  sizes,  from  the 
smallest  single  cylinder  stationary  gasoline  engine  carried 
on  a  wagon  for  operating  a  grind-stone  or  a  pump  to  the 
ponderous  multi-cylindered  Diesel  marine  engine  of  thou 
sands  of  horespower,  operating  upon  crude  oil  and  pro 
pelling  large  ocean  liners  around  the  world.  While  the 
automobile  industry  owes  its  development  to  this  type  of 
engine,  the  aeroplane,  dirigible,  and  submarine  could  not 
operate  with  any  other  known  form  of  motive  power. 

It  is  interesting  to  recall  that  only  a  comparatively 
few  years  ago  the  now  almost  priceless  gasoline,  used  in 
the  operation  of  almost  every  automobile  and  aeroplane  in 
the  world,  was  priceless  in  a  very  different  sense,  being 
regarded  as  a  troublesome  and  sometimes  dangerous  waste 
product  which  had  to  be  eliminated  in  the  extraction  of 
kerosene  from  crude  oil.  Millions  of  gallons  of  gasoline 
were  thrown  away  before  its  value  was  even  dreamed  of. 
although  now  the  valuable  product  of  a  barrel  of  crude 
oil  is  the  gasoline,  while  the  kerosene  is  almost  a  drug  on 
the  market.  In  this  connection  I  might  ask  how  many 
of  the  two  hundred  and  more  by-products  obtained  from 
refining  a  barrel  of  crude  oil  could  most  of  us  name? 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  progress  of  inventions  on 
the  American  side  of  the  water  has  been  along  the  lines 
of  peace  and  progress,  while  in  continental  Europe  more 
attention  lias  been  paid  to  death-dealing  machinery.  The 


44  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

efficiency  of  the  Krupp  gun  was  largely  increased,  the 
dirigible  balloon  was  transformed  into  the  efficient  zeppe- 
lin,  while  most  far-reaching  of  all  was  the  adaptation  of 
the  use  of  Wright's  invention  of  the  aeroplane  to  scout 
duty  and  for  the  directing  of  artillery  fire,  and  the  adap 
tation  of  Fulton's  submarine  for  scouring  the  seas  as 
birds  of  prey. 

It  is  said  that  when  Fulton  offered  his  invention  to 
Napoleon,  and  proposed  to  prove  its  efficiency  by  blowing 
up  some  British  ships  lying  outside  the  harbor,  the  tender 
hearted  scourge  of  Europe  declined,  saying  that  such  a 
course  was  too  inhuman  for  civilized  warfare.  That,  how 
ever,  was  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  the  human  monster 
who  so  spake  had  to  be  caught  and  caged.  But  a  people 
primed  with  the  expectancy  of  universal  domination,  a 
people  of  deep  thought  and  broad  intelligence,  of  high 
culture  and  superior  morals,  who  should  have  learned  much 
in  the  meantime,  who  should  have  made  much  progress 
in  humanity,  in  kindness  of  heart,  and  in  following  the 
teachings  of  Christ,  it  was  scarcely  proper  to  ask  of  them 
to  let  the  killing  of  a  few  millions  of  men,  and  the  appro 
priation  of  their  property  stand  in  the  way  of  God's  vice 
gerent  in  the  fulfillment  of  the  righteous  purpose  of  kaiser 
kultur.  Furthermore  Napoleon  was  lord  only  of  a  sec 
tion,  while  one  aspiring  to  the  mastery  of  the  world  should 
know  best  what  was  necessary  and  honorable. 

Said  Lloyd  George,  the  chief  stay  of  the  British  nation 
and  hope  of  Christendom,  in  the  gravest  speech  in  his 
career  before  the  house  of  commons,  on  the  23d  of  Feb 
ruary,  1917:  "There  is  no  sure  way  to  victory  without 
hunting  the  submarines  from  the  deep.  If  we  take  drastic 
measures,  we  can  cope  with  this  menace,  but  if  the  nation 
is  not  prepared  to  do  so  disaster  is  before  us." 

After  thus  opening  the  eyes  of  the  people  to  the  danger 
that  confronts  them,  he  promptly  set  about  to  proclaim  a 
schedule  of  sweeping  constructive  measures.  The  reme- 


INFELICITIES    OF    POSSESSION  45 

dies  offered  were  to  save  tonnage,  cut  down  imports,  and 
stimulate  home  production. 

It  was  imperative,  he  said,  that  the  nation  should  know 
what  the  conditions  are;  that  the  stocks  of  food  at  that 
time-  were  lower  than  ever,  and  that  hand  in  hand  with 
the  enormous  increase  in  the  demand  was  an  alarming 
decrease  of  tonnage. 

On  foodstuffs  alone,  he  said,  he  proposed  to  save  900,000 
tons  of  shipping  yearly.  And  as  for  luxuries  and  unnec- 
sary  articles,  not  another  ton  or  bale  or  case  must  be  im 
ported  hereafter. 

Not  a  day,  not  an  hour  must  be  lost  in  putting  the 
nation  in  shape  to  support  itself,  to  cultivate  every  inch  of 
soil. 

"There  are  still  a  few  weeks,"  he  said,  "to  sow  spring 
wheat,  oats  and  barley;  to  induce  the  farmer  to  plow  up 
pasture  land  immediately."  Then  he  gave  a  series  of 
stringent  regulations  affecting  imports,  food  prices,  wages, 
and  farming  capacity.  "If  such  a  programme  is  carried 
out,  England  can  face  the  enemy's  worst,  and  that  is  what 
we  ought  to  be  prepared  to  do." 

One  by  one  he  drove  his  points  home,  speaking  in  a 
calm,  measured  voice.  Now  and  then,  when  hand-clap 
ping  threatened  interruption,  he  stopped  applause,  saying, 
"Wait,  I  am  not  through  yet." 

It  was  a  different  Lloyd  George  from  the  one  that  two 
short  months  before  addressed  the  same  house,  answering 
Germany's  offer  of  peace.  There  was  nothing  of  the  flam 
boyant  or  grandiloquent  at  this  time  about  the  man  charged 
with  the  greatest  burden  of  responsibility  in  England's 
history.  No  stormy  ovations  greeted  or  interrupted  his 
speech.  But  the  sum  and  substance  of  his  message  was 
the  same,  "We  will  hold  out  to  the  bitter  end." 

Where  in  his  memorable  December  speech  lie  spoke 
along  general  lines,  he  now  dealt  with  cold,  hard  facts. 
It  was  Lloyd  George  at  his  best,  and  in  his  prime.  He 
recalled  vividly  the  stormy  days  of  his  reign  as  chancellor 


46  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

of  the  exchequer  when  he,  and  he  alone,  pointed  the  way 
to  the  great  financial  and  economic  reforms  that  built  the 
substructure  of  the  empire's  strength  and  endurance. 

In  the  diplomatic  box  sat,  among  others,  Premier  Bor- 
don  of  Canada,  Premier  Massey  of  New  Zealand,  who  also 
represents  Australia  at  the  colonial  conferences,  and  many 
representatives  of  entente  nations  and  British  dominions. 

It  was  visibly  a  painful  task  for  the  premier  to  an 
nounce  in  the  course  of  his  speech  certain  important  re 
strictions  that  would  hit  Britain's  own  allies.  To  increase 
home  food  production  he  outlined  a  plan  for  stimulating 
the  farmer  by  guaranteeing  good  prices  for  commodities 
over  a  period  of  years.  This  he  supplemented  by  the 
announcement  that  the  land  owner  would  be  forced  to 
cultivate  his  land.  The  speeding  up  of  the  farm  laborer 
was  provided  for  by  guaranteeing  him  a  minimum  wage  of 
twenty-five  shillings  per  week  instead  of  the  present  four 
teen  to  eighteen  shillings. 

By  the  curtailment  of  imports  he  expected  to  reduce 
the  demands  on  cargo  space  by  several  million  tons.  Food 
stuffs,  of  which  16,000,000  tons  were  imported  last  year, 
would  be  cut  nearly  a  million  tons  by  lopping  off  certain 
luxuries.  Paper  users  who  already  had  been  considerably 
curtailed  must  henceforth  get  along  with  only  half  the 
supply  they  were  now  receiving,  thus  saving  640,000  tons. 
Certain  savings  also  would  be  effected  in  the  import  of 
ore,  which  now  amounts  to  8,000,000  tons  annually,  and  in 
lumber  which  at  present  is  4,000,000  tons. 

Prices  were  to  be  set  on  food.  The  government  would 
guarantee  a  price  of  38  shillings  six  pence  for  oats  this 
year,  32  shillings  for  the  next  two  years  and  24  shillings 
for  the  three  following  j^ears. 

The  price  of  potatoes  would  be  guaranteed  for  the  com 
ing  season  only  at  six  pounds  a  ton. 

For  wheat  the  government  would  guarantee  the  farmer 
the  following  minimum  prices  per  quarter :  For  the  present 


INFELICITIES    OF    POSSESSION  47 

year,  60  shillings;  for  1918  and  1919,  55  shillings;  for 
1920,  1921,  and  1922,  45  shillings. 

Brewing  will  be  cut  down  to  10,000,000  barrels  annu 
ally.  A  similar  reduction  will  be  made  in  the  output  of 
spirits,  affecting  a  saving  of  600,000  tons  of  foodstuffs. 

The  importation  of  aerated,  mineral,  and  table  waters 
would  be  prohibited.  Power  would  be  given  to  the  board 
of  agriculture  to  compel  land  owners  to  cultivate  their 
ground. 

The  minimum  wage  for  farm  labor  of  twenty-five  shil 
lings  a  week  represented  an  increase  of  50  to  80  per  cent 
over  the  present  prevailing  payment. 

All  essential  articles  of  food  would  be  on  the  free  list, 
but  certain  articles  would  be  reduced  or  prohibited.  The 
stoppage  of  importation  of  coffee,  tea,  and  cocoa  for  the 
time  would  be  made  owing  to  the  fact  of  large  supplies 
on  hand. 

It  was  necessary  to  get  as  much  work  as  possible  out 
of  the  shipyards,  not  merely  for  the  mercantile  marine, 
but  for  building  boats  to  cope  with  submarines.  Timber 
to  the  amount  of  6,400,000  tons  had  been  exported,  he 
said,  and  if  this  tonnage  was  to  be  saved  this  timber  prob 
lem  was  to  be  dealt  with.  Investigation  was  being  made 
as  to  the  best  methods  of  economizing  timber  behind  the 
lines  and  in  England. 

Another  method  was  to  make  the  army  in  France  self- 
supporting. 

The  French  government  already  had  placed  two  for 
ests  at  the  disposal  of  Great  Britain,  and  he  was  afraid  the 
government  must  ask  the  French  to  make  further  sacri 
fices.  A  third  effect  was  to  get  sufficient  labor  to  in 
crease  the  supply  of  home  timber  for  pit  props  and  other 
purposes. 

The  importation  of  apples,  tomatoes,  and  fruits  would 
be  prohibited  entirely. 

The  only  exception  made  in  the  prohibition  of  fruit 
would  be  in  oranges  and  bananas,  in  which  the  amount 


48  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

brought  in  would  be  restricted  25  per  cent.  The  same 
restriction  would  apply  to  nuts.  Canned  salmon  impor 
tations  would  be  reduced  50  per  cent,  The  importation 
of  foreign  tea,  coffee,  and  cocoa  was  prohibited,  and  even 
the  amount  of  India  tea  which  might  be  brought  in  was 
reduced. 

It  was  expected  to  save  900,000  tons  of  shipping  yearly 
on  foodstuffs. 

These  restrictions  would  be  imposed  immediately.  Steps 
would  be  taken  to  prevent  speculative  buying  and  if  nec 
essary  the  food  controller  would  take  control  of  the  com 
modity. 

When  we  consider  the  hardships  endured  and  the  sac 
rifices  made  by  the  entente  nations,  not  only  to  maintain 
their  present  state  but  to  secure  for  themselves  and  the 
world  at  large  conditions  of  safety  for  the  future,  is  it 
not  in  rather  bad  taste  for  us  to  be  continually  nagging 
them  to  quit  fighting,  assuming  a  wisdom  superior  to  their 
own  in  the  management  of  their  affairs? 

Little  wonder  that  they  should  sometimes  feel  annoyed 
at  the  clap-trap  of  peace  propagandists  in  America,  or  the 
sailing  of  a  Ship  of  Fools  across  the  ocean  to  tell  them 
what  they  ought  to  do. 

Thus  while  Europe  was  undergoing  the  horrors  of  war 
we  were  enjoying  the  horrors  of  peace.  We  take  trouble 
to  ourselves  over  many  things.  We  feel  deeply  for  the 
starving  millions  whose  sons  or  supporters  are  sent  to  the 
slaughter.  We  are  troubled  over  the  ever  increasing  cost 
of  foodstuffs,  owing  to  the  shipping  of  our  products  to 
Europe,  and  we  are  troubled  from  the  lack  of  ships  to 
carry  away  these  same  products  that  we  may  sell  and  get 
the  money. 

We  hate  war  and  would  if  possible  keep  out  of  it.  We 
are  troubled  in  spending  so  much  money  preparing  for 
war  which  is  yet  to  bring  us  yet  more  trouble  when  it 


INFELICITIES    OF    POSSESSION  49 

comes.  We  are  troubled  over  the  money  we  make,  and 
are  yet  more  troubled  over  the  money  we  do  not  make. 

Some  of  our  pacifists  would  go  to  extremes  and  abolish 
controversy  which  leads  to  combat,  which  is  a  part  of  man 's 
nature,  and  no  more  to  be  exterminated  than  any  other 
quality  with  which  we  are  endowed. 

Slavery  and  polygamy  are  frowned  down  by  civiliza 
tion,  though  nowhere  forbidden  in  the  scriptures.  Nor 
can  we  know  that  the  Almighty  does  not  approve  of  war, 
if  we  may  believe  holy  writ,  since  he  established  it  from  the 
foundation  of  the  earth,  implanted  in  the  hearts  of  all 
creatures  the  fighting  impulse,  with  means  for  offense  and 
defense. 

War  is  as  much  in  vogue  now  as  it  was  millenniums  ago 
when  the  Lord  sent  Joshua  across  the  Jordan  river  to  kill 
the  inhabitants  and  take  from  them  their  lands,  though 
civilization  has  put  a  stop  to  such  outrages  as  autos-da-fe, 
Bartholomew  massacres,  the  African  slave  trade,  and  the 
enforcement  of  opium  from  British  India  on  China.  Also 
the  killing  of  prisoners  of  war,  the  rape  of  women,  the 
spitting  of  infants  on  bayonets  were  as  a  custom  for  a  time 
taboo,  but  now  restored,  in  whole  or  in  part,  both  in  Mexico 
and  in  Europe. 

Let  dogs  delight  to  bark  and  bite,  for  God  hath  made 
them  so,  says  the  teacher  to  the  infant  class ;  but  he  neglects 
to  add  that  God  made  man  that  way  as  well,  proof  of 
which  lies  in  the  fact  that  since  Cain  killed  Abel  men  have 
delighted  in  destroying  one  another,  and  still  so  delight 
more  than  ever,  as  witness  the  fields  of  blood  the  world 
over  this  day.  The  kind  souls,  male  and  female,  who  would 
stop  this  slaughter  are  but  flies  that  the  blood-besmeared 
warrior  brushes  out  of  his  way. 

"Five  years  ago,"  says  Woods  Hutchinson,  "we  were 
blandly  asserting  that  this  was  the  age  of  peace.  We  have 
had  a  rude  awakening.  The  bright  dream  that  peace  could 
be  insured  by  sternly  refusing  to  think  about  war  went  up 
in  smoke  with  the  forts  of  Liege.  And  as,  fortunately  for 


50  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

us,  it  was  only  our  peace  dreams  and  not  our  forts  that 
were  blown  up,  the  only  sensible  thing  to  do  is  to  rub  our 
eyes,  admit  that  we  were  talking  in  our  sleep,  and  proceed 
to  adjust  ourselves  to  the  stern  and  disagreeable  facts.  We 
must  ruefully  admit  that  we  really  ought  to  have  known 
better.  Man  has  been  a  fighting  animal  for  so  many,  many 
thousands  of  years,  and  it  is  hard  to  teach  an  old  dog  new 
tricks,  and  even  more  so  to  make  him  forget  old  ones.  One 
cold-blooded  scientist,  Frederic  Adams  Woods,  has  made  a 
careful  and  dispassionate  study  of  the  actual  records  and 
past  performances  of  the  nations  of  Europe  in  this  regard 
for  the  last  four  hundred  and  fifty  years.  In  the  whole  of 
that  time  there  have  been  only  tw"b  periods,  one  of  ten  and 
one  of  seven  years,  in  which  the  whole  continent  was  free 
from  war,  and  the  only  difference  between  the  fifteenth 
century  and  the  nineteenth  is  that  the  former  devoted  fifty- 
five  per  cent  of  its  time  to  fighting,  and  the  latter  thirty- 
four. 

"And  the  twentieth  century  has  slumped  right  back  to 
the  level  of  the  fifteenth  already,  for  one  year  of  the  present 
scientific  slaughter  would  be  the  equivalent  of  thirty  years 
of  any  form  of  war  known  to  history.  Indeed,  the  military 
histories  show  that  more  men  have  been  killed  and  wounded 
already  in  twenty  months  than  were  ever  killed  in  Europe 
in  two  centuries  before.  A  group  of  nations  capable  of  in 
flicting  and  bearing  such  frightful  slaughter  for  the  right 
of  free  colonial  expansion,  so  far  as  any  intelligible  cause 
can  be  discovered  for  the  calamity,  is  capable  of  crossing  a 
dozen  Atlantics  to  settle  its  respective  places  in  the  sun. 
So  that  to  be  prepared  to  defend  our  particular  patch  of 
sunshine  is  a  matter  of  the  simplest  and  most  elementary 
prudence.  Not  to  make  war  probable,  but  to  make  peace 
certain.  We  can  have  just  as  much  sunshine  as  ever  be 
fore  ;  all  we  need  to  do  is  to  plan  and  construct  condensers 
capable  of  converting  it  into  sunstroke  and  thunderbolts 
for  any  invader.  By  taking  thought,  the  same  sunlight  that 
grows  our  crops  can  be  made  to  shrivel  the  army  worm  if  it 


INFELICITIES    OF    POSSESSION  51 

crawls  over  our  peaceful  border.  The  same  .forces  which 
make  a  nation  prosperous  in  peace  will  make  it  dangerous 
in  war  by  a  little  pre-arrangement. 

"As  soon  as  we  make  up  our  mind  to  frankly  face  the 
unwelcome  situation  we  find  many  redeeming  features  in  it 
at  once.  First  and  foremost  the  huge  physical  benefits 
which  can  be  inflicted  upon  the  rising  generation,  in  the 
name  of  war  and  military  training."  And  the  learned  doc 
tor  goes  on  to  enumerate  the  blessing  which  will  accrue  to 
the  race  from  the  European  conflicts,  provided  there  are 
any  people  left  after  the  kaiser  gets  through. 

And  this  is  what  Theodore  Eoosevelt  says  about  war: 
* '  I  speak  to  you  especially  of  the  prime  duty  of  self-defense. 
I  abhor  unjust  and  wanton  war.  I  shall  always  do,  as  I 
always  have  done,  everything  to  secure  honorable  and  last 
ing  peace.  But  it  is  folly  to  say  that  we  shall  never  be 
engaged  in  war.  The  events  of  the  past  two  years  show 
that  as  the  world  now  is,  such  an  assumption  by  any  nation 
is  not  only  folly,  but  criminal  folly.  Washington,  who  was 
the  very  opposite  of  the  pacifists  of  his  day,  said  that  this 
country  could  not  expect  always  to  avoid  war.  His  words 
were  true  then.  They  are  true  now.  Tf  this  nation  con 
tinues  its  national  existence  long  enough  it  is  sure  at  some 
time  in  the  future  to  be  involved  in  war  exactly  as  at  times 
in  the  past  it  has  been  involved  in  war.  Our  prime  duty  is 
so  to  prepare  as  to  minimize  the  number  of  occasions  when 
war  will  come,  and  to  insure  that  when  it  does  come,  it  shall 
result  neither  dishonorably  nor  disastrously  for  the  Amer 
ican  people.  At  this  moment  we  are  not  ready  in  any  way, 
physically  or  spiritually,  to  face  a  serious  foe.  We  owe  this 
lamentable  fact  to  several  causes,  but  especially  to  the  evil 
leadership  given  our  people  in  high  places." 

Of  all  the  nations  we  have  at  hand  the  most  money,  and 
men  in  plenty,  and  to  spare,  and  yet  as  I  have  said  before 
we  seem  more  loath  than  any  to  spend  our  money  or  shed 
our  blood  to  save  our  lives.  We  would  not  fight  for  terri 
tory,  nor  for  dominion,  but  only  for  our  rights,  for  human 


52  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

rights,  and  for  that  prestige  which  comes  only  with  honor. 
Even  if  as  economists  claim,  that  war  is  a  promoter  of 
civilization,  we  can  get  along  with  less  civilization  if  neces 
sary.  As  for  ignoble  peace,  neither  in  our  war  with  Eng 
land,  nor  in  our  war  for  the  union  would  we  make  peace 
without  victory,  as  our  pacifists  are  clamoring  for  the 
European  belligerents  to  do,  where  the  issues  are  more 
vital  to  all  the  world,  if  possible,  than  were  those  in  our 
own  wars  to  us. 

Even  our  Congress,  weighing  the  chances  of  reelection, 
will  not  assist  the  peace  people,  as  there  are  among  their 
constituents  two  classes  who  are  in  no  haste  for  the  war  to 
terminate,  the  munition  makers  and  others  who  profit  by  it 
pecuniarily,  and  those  who  justly  and  humanely  desire  to 
see  the  question  of  Prussian  militarism  definitely  settled, 
and  who  know  that  the  combatants  will  listen  to  no  proposal 
of  peace  until  this  war  is  fought  out  to  a  finish,  the  issue 
being  life  or  death  to  the  leading  belligerents. 

In  all  the  wide  discussion  of  the  ethics  of  war,  there  is 
much  shallow  talk.  Were  there  not  more  sophistry  than 
sense  in  pretending  to  offer  an  excuse  for  unjustifiable  warr 
we  might  observe  that  the  peace  propagandists  have  before 
them  the  difficult  task  of  overthrowing  an  unrepealed  ordi 
nance  of  the  Almighty.  That  God  does  not  want  war  to 
cease  is  clearly  apparent,  otherwise  he  would  stop  it.  It  is 
clearly  apparent  also  from  the  fact  that  an  all-wise  and 
kind  providence  has  given  from  the  first,  and  continues  to 
give  every  animated  being  some  instrument  or  means  for 
attack  and  defense,  which  would  be  irrelevant  were  not  war 
permitted  and  expected. 

The  elements  war  on  each  other,  earth,  air  and  water 
fight  for  the  supremacy,  as  also  do  plants  and  animals,  fish 
and  flying  things,  insects  and  reptiles,  and  man  the  most 
voracious  of  all.  Throughout  all  nature  hate  is  as  manifest 
as  love.  I  have  in  my  garden  a  camphor-tree.  The  haw 
thorn  planted  too  near  it  does  not  like  it,  and  so  throws  out 
its  branches,  far  away  on  the  other  side.  The  camphor  is  a. 


INFELICITIES    OF    POSSESSION  53 

goodly  tree,  and  the  hawthorn  cannot  tell  why  it  does  not 
like  it,  except  that  plants  have  their  Mr.  Fell  as  well  as 
dogs  and  men.  Surely  God  did  not  establish  and  sustain, 
preserving  to  this  day  this  bloody  arbitrament  for  the  set 
tlement  of  disputes,  for  the  quieting  of  evil  passions,  for 
the  satisfying  of  human  as  well  as  of  divine  justice  with 
out  a  purpose.  "War  is  wasteful,  so  is  nature;  war  is  cruel, 
so  is  nature ;  we  cannot  live  without  nature,  we  never  have 
lived  without  war. 

Should  we  conclude  to  postpone  for  the  present  the 
pacification  of  Japan,  we  might  complete  our  pacification 
of  Mexico  so  happily  begun  if  not  indeed  accomplished  by 
our  worthy  president,  who  under  the  spell  of  exalted  offi 
cialism  declared  that  he  would  never  cease  his  solemn  as 
severations,  would  never  withdraw  his  forces  from  Mexico, 
until  he  had  given  that  unhappy  country  as  good  a  ruler 
as  is  he  himself,  with  a  constituency  surpassed  only  by  that 
which  was  represented  by  his  lambs  of  the  Baltimore  con 
vention.  In  the  execution  of  which  promise  we  remember 
that  he  sent  a  fleet  to  Vera  Cruz,  hastily  withdrawing  it, 
however,  when  Huerta  would  not  salute  his  flag.  Then  he 
sent  an  army  into  Chihuahua,  where  he  marched  his  sol 
diers  up  the  hill,  then  marched  them  down  again,  wondering 
where  the  little  rascal  Villa  was,  and  when  he  found  him  he 
did  not  want  him,  but  left  him  to  continue  his  bloody  work 
after  his  own  fashion.  And  so  Mexico  was  pacified.  Cost, 
lives  500 ;  cash,  $400,000,000 ;  result,  nil. 

Had  the  president  and  his  war  lords  been  gifted  with 
half  the  practical  good  sense  of  Porfirio  Diaz,  they  might 
have  landed  a  strong  force  at  Vera  Cruz,  marched  quickly 
and  taken  possession  of  the  city  of  Mexico,  installed  as  chief 
ruler  and  ministers,  the  best  men  of  the  republic,  then  have 
sent  word  to  the  revolutionary  leaders  to  come  forward  and 
name  for  consideration  the  position  they  would  like  to  oc 
cupy  in  the  government,  offering  a  reward  for  the  capture, 
dead  or  alive,  of  any  bandits  refusing  to  answer  the  call, 


54  TN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

and  the  conquest  and  pacification  could  both  have  been  ac 
complished  with  comparatively  little  bloodshed. 

The  achievements  of  our  lords  of  high  emprise,  so  bril 
liant  in  promise,  so  puerile — or  shall  we  say  so  academic — 
in  performance,  were  supplemented  by  the  happy  reign  of 
Carranza,  while  the  people  enjoyed  such  prosperity  as 
might  be  expected  in  the  land  still  infested  from  sea  to  sea 
by  professional  highwaymen  and  bands  of  organized  revo 
lutionists  and  cutthroats.  Oh !  we  can  fight,  if  necessary, 
fight  and  run  away,  and  so  live  to  fight  another  day. 

Carranza,  whom  President  Wilson  alternately  repelled 
and  embraced,  had  but  a  slight  hold  upon  the  government 
of  the  people,  and  was  never  of  any  considerable  conse 
quence  in  any  way,  not  strong  enough  even  for  a  respect 
able  bandit. 

Forgetting  for  a  moment  that  with  us  the  people  and 
the  government  are  one,  while  in  Mexico  they  are  two,  we 
may  say  that  the  people  not  the  government  made  the 
United  States,  and  it  is  upon  the  people  we  depend  for  pro 
tection  from  the  rapacity  of  rulers,  while  in  Mexico  it  is 
the  reverse;  an  oligarchy  rules,  and  there  are  but  a  few 
people  of  the  governing  class. 

I  have  often  marveled  since  the  expatriation  of  Porfirio 
Diaz  how  the  censure  then  so  unjustly  bestowed  should 
have  been  allowed  to  remain  upon  him  with  no  attempt  to 
remove  it,  and  without  a  word  of  commendation  for  his 
long  beneficient  rule  in  view  of  the  reign  of  horrors  that 
followed  his  departure.  Not  satisfied  with  a  benevolent 
despotism,  under  which  the  country  prospered  as  never  be 
fore,  Mexico  drove  out  the  despot  and  lapsed  into  terrorism 
for  the  people  and  self-seeking  greed  for  the  rulers.  To 
this  the  United  States  made  no  protest,  but  rather  ac 
quiesced,  for  is  not  our  sister  republic  n  republic  in  name 
only  while  we  are  the  genuine  article? 

History  points  to  us  the  fact  that  the  tendency  of  re 
publican  government  is  toward  oligarchic  rule,  but  the  in- 


INFELICITIES    OF    POSSESSION  55 

flux  from  abroad  has  turned  our  oligarchy  of  wealth  into 
an  oligarchy  of  the  rabble.  Some  of  this  transplanted  ele 
ment  takes  root  and  thrives,  but  as  a  whole  it  cannot  be 
trusted,  as  German  and  Irish  hyphenates  are  every  day 
showing  us.  During  the  first  decade  of  the  present  cen 
tury  ten  million  immigrants  landed  in  the  United  States,  to 
be  followed  later  by  other  ten  millions,  twenty-three  per 
cent  of  whom  were  illiterates  who  could  not  read  or  write 
in  any  language. 

That  it  is  our  duty,  that  it  should  be  our  pleasure  or  our 
profit  to  educate  and  refine  this  rabble,  and  to  protect  it 
from  the  wickedness  of  the  world  while  all  this  time  it  is  in 
no  sense  one  with  us,  but  seeks  rather  to  undermine  our 
institutions  and  overthrow  our  government, — well,  each  of 
us  to  his  taste. 

Four-fifths  of  Mexico's  population  of  17,000,000  are 
peons,  Indians  or  mixed  native  and  Spanish  blood.  The 
land  is  held  in  large  tracts,  as  much  as  5,000,000  acres  in 
some  instances  by  one  man,  or  a  whole  state  by  a  few  fam 
ilies,  while  the  natives  are  held  by  debt  in  a  state  equiva 
lent  to  slavery. 

For  over  a  century  the  United  States  has  been  trying 
the  experiment  on  a  larger  scale  than  ever  before  attempted, 
of  transplantation,  and  growing  good  citizenship  from  alien 
stock  in  an  alien  soil,  and  the  result  has  been  denationaliza 
tion. 

Those  most  familiar  with  the  facts  will  admit  that  the 
thirty  years'  rule  of  Porfirio  Diaz,  which  gave  Mexico  a 
happy  period  of  peace  and  prosperity  such  as  was  never 
there  before,  and  will  not  be  seen  again  for  many  a  long 
day,  was  one  never  excelled  as  a  government  best  befitting 
the  people  governed. 

Critics  may  ridicule  the  idea  if  they  choose,  but  is  not 
the  Diaz  method  nearer  common  sense  than  Woodrow  Wil 
son's  empty  boast  that  he  would  make  a  stable  government 
out  of  the  material  there  existing?  Look  at  that  unhappy 
country  now,  compare  the  present  anarchy  with  the  happy 


56  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

despotism  of  Porfirio  Diaz,  and  if  we  cannot  point  out  a 
better  plan  than  his  we  can  at  least  cease  to  villify  his  good 
name.  And  further,  any  one  who  knew  Mexico  could  easily 
have  predicted  what  followed,  as  was  fully  presented  in  my 
History  of  Mexico. 

In  warring  on  Mexico  what  do  we  fight?  Not  a  people 
nor  yet  soldiers,  but  a  ragged,  half -starved  rabble,  ignorant 
and  fanatical,  wrought  to  frenzy  by  their  leaders  in  their 
hatred  of  the  United  States.  We  must  butcher  this  poor 
humanity  by  the  thousands,  suffering  somewhat  ourselves, 
in  order  to  stop  the  bandit  raids  upon  our  border  and  de 
liver  the  people  from  their  own  enslavement.  It  is  pitiful 
but  it  is  necessary,  the  only  sort  of  missionary  work  that 
will  prove  effectual  in  that  quarter. 

As  regards  the  rights  of  conquest  and  annexation  be 
tween  Mexico  and  the  United  States  there  is  little  to  choose 
between  us.  It  was  ordained  long  before  we  were  born  that 
the  rights  of  the  matter  were  with  the  strongest.  Spaniards 
came  and  captured  and  converted  southern  America  and 
held  the  lands  of  the  people.  Englishmen  came  and  cap 
tured  and  killed  the  inhabitants  of  northern  America,  and 
appropriated  their  lands  to  their  own  use,  calling  it  their 
own.  So  that  whichever  side  wins  in  any  future  conflict, 
it  is  only  repeating  a  world  policy, — stealing  stolen  lands. 

There  was  sound  statesmanship  in  the  autocracy  of  Por 
firio  Diaz,  statesmanship  of  a  quality  not  current  at  Wash 
ington  during  the  past  eight  years,  statesmanship  even  if 
not  orthodox  along  New  England  lines  carried  with  it  com 
mon  sense  and  common  honesty.  In  many  phases  of  our 
representative  democracy  we  fail  to  find  these  desirable 
qualities,  as  for  example  where  one  fresh  from  the  halls  of 
learning,  full  of  pure  patriotism,  sincerity,  veracity,  and 
superlative  moral  ideals,  is  permitted  to  dictate  terms  to 
the  government  and  rule  the  commonwealth.  In  Mexico 
the  choice  was  between  autocratic  rule  or  anarchy.  They 
have  tried  both  and  should  know  now  which  is  preferable. 

It  is  not  the  people  of  Mexico,  I  say,  with  whom  we 


INFELICITIES    OF    POSSESSION  57 

have  to  deal  in  treating  with  Mexico.  They  are  blameless 
in  so  far  as  they  have  been  made  rabid  by  bandits  and 
revolutionists.  It  is  not  the  people  of  Europe  who  are  re 
sponsible  for  the  war  in  Europe,  but  the  royal  usurpers  of 
the  rights  of  the  people,  whom  let  us  hope  may  in  due  time 
be  extinguished.  It  is  not  our  workingmen  who  are  respon 
sible  for  the  impositions  attending  unionism,  but  the  ex 
ploiters  of  the  workingmen.  Under  the  rule  of  these  pirates 
of  industry  the  soaring  ideals  respecting  labor  do  not  reach 
their  fulfilment.  The  labor  leaders  would  give  one  class, 
the  class  that  gives  them  money,  a  higher  standard  of  living 
at  the  expense  of  their  non-supporters,  who  must  be  satis 
fied  with  a  correspondingly  lower  standard. 

We  have  liberty,  liberty  to  corner  capital,  to  crush  op 
position  in  trade,  to  monopolize  labor,  to  coerce,  to  boy 
cott,  to  agitate,  to  dominate,  to  dynamite,  to  elect  incom 
petent  or  infamous  judges,  to  support  facile  police  systems 
that  wink  at  crime  and  safely  guard  gambling  dens,  restau 
rants  with  superb  sleeping  accommodations,  and  houses  of 
ill-fame;  to  contrive  labor  strikes,  to  tie  up  commerce  and 
bring  discomfort  and  ruin  to  millions  of  citizens.  We  enjoy 
that  quality  of  honesty  which  permits  the  stealing  of  a 
convention  and  conducting  a  government  for  the  benefit 
of  the  office-holders. 

The  form  of  government  is  a  mirror  in  which  the  peo 
ple  governed  may  see  themselves.  In  municipal  politics  the 
labor  leader  has  taken  the  place  to  some  extent  of  the  politi 
cal  boss.  As  Mr  Moffett  presents  boss-rule  he  tells  of  what 
it  was  rather  than  what  it  is,  though  the  principles  of  re 
publicanism  it  contains,  or  rather  that  it  lacks,  are  the 
same  now  as  ever.  He  says  that  "  every  form  of  govern 
ment  develops  its  own  types  of  leadership.  Some  forms 
breed  demagogues,  others  statesmen,  others  military  ad 
venturers,  others  seraglio  intriguers,  others  masterful  ora 
tors.  Ours  breed  bosses.  From  a  scientific  point  of  view 
the  system  of  boss-rule  is  one  of  the  most  perfect  and  beau 
tifully  complex  developments  of  modern  civilization.  It  is 


58  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

a  convincing  illustration  of  the  possible  stability  of  a  pyra 
mid  resting  on  its  apex.  The  apex  of  which  the  boss  rests 
his  pyramid  of  government  is  a  body  of  a  few  hundreds  or 
thousands  of  men,  who  agree  to  render  him  any  political 
service  required  in  exchange  for  support  at  the  public  ex 
pense  or  protection  in  unlawful  occupations.  This  force 
he  employs  to  gain  possession  of  the  machinery  of  a  party, 
preferably  the  one  locally  dominant. 

1  'Unless  there  is  a  rival  boss  in  possession,  this  is  not 
hard,  for  it  is  an  unprofitable  political  servant  that  cannot 
make  the  tour  of  a  dozen  primary  polling  places,  and  de 
posit  at  least  one  vote  at  each  in  the  course  of  a  day. 
Against  such  a  force,  an  undisciplined  mob  of  reformers, 
limited  to  one  vote  each,  and  giving  politics  only  such  at 
tention  as  they  can  spare  from  more  serious  occupations,  is 
as  helpless  as  an  infant  Sunday-school  class  against  a  regi 
ment  of  regulars.  When  there  are  two  aspirants  for  the 
boss-ship,  the  one  that  gets  control  of  the  membership  rules, 
and  the  counting  machine  of  the  party  wins.  So  conclusive 
is  this  preliminary  test  of  strength  considered  that  the  em 
bryo  boss  who  fails  here  generally  declines  to  trouble  him 
self  with  the  useless  formality  of  voting  his  followers  at 
the  primaries,  but  either  bolts  or  makes  terms  with  his  suc 
cessful  rival,  and  waits  for  a  more  favorable  opportunity. 

"  Having  once  carried  the  primaries,  the  new  political 
leader  finds  easy  sailing  thereafter.  He  holds  a  convention 
and  nominates  a  local  ticket,  which  by  virtue  of  its  regular 
ity  commands  the  support  of  the  entire  party  and  is  duly 
elected.  The  retainers  who  have  made  the  victory  possible 
are  appropriately  rewarded,  some  with  city  offices,  some 
with  contracts  or  jobs  under  contractors,  and  some  with 
police  protection  in  dive-keeping,  and  other  less  reputable 
occupations,  whose  profits  depend  on  a  good  understanding 
with  the  governing  owers. 

"The  hold  of  the  boss  on  the  party  machinery  is 
strengthened  by  purging  the  rolls  of  the  precinct  clubs  or 
associations  of  unruly  members,  and  manning  the  organi- 


INFELICITIES    OF    POSSESSION  59 

zation  throughout  with  officers  who  can  be  depended  upon 
to  let  in  only  the  right  kind  of  votes  at  the  primaries,  and 
to  correct  in  the  counting  any  mistakes  that  may  accident 
ally  occur  in  the  voting.  The  dictator  is  now  in  a  position 
to  make  the  political  war  pay  its  own  expenses,  and  a  hand 
some  profit  in  addition.  Besides  the  regular  percentage  on 
salaries,  which  his  retainers  in  office  cheerfully  pay  as  the 
skipper's  proportion  of  the  booty  captured  on  a  successful 
cruise,  he  levies  assessments  on  rich  corporations  in  need  of 
official  favors;  on  large  property-holders  who  wish  to  pay 
small  taxes;  on  saloonkeepers  who  desire  to  conduct  their 
establishments  under  liberal  interpretations  of  the  law ;  on 
gamblers,  confidence  men,  and  other  followers  of  vicious 
professions ;  on  purveyors  of  public  supplies ;  on  contractors 
for  municipal  work,  and  in  short  on  everybody  whom  the 
local  government  can  either  help  or  harm. 

"His  power  brings  in  wealth  and  his  wealth  procures 
more  power.  He  sends  a  solid  delegation  to  the  state  con 
vention  of  his  party,  and  by  judicious  combinations  with 
the  friends  of  candidates  from  different  sections,  he  allies 
his  machine  with  the  state  organization,  and  through  it,  if 
successful  at  the  polls,  with  the  state  government.  He 
sends  another  solid  delegation  to  the  legislature,  and  mar 
kets  its  votes  on  the  most  favorable  terms.  Finally,  if  am 
bitious  he  exerts  his  power  as  a  state  leader  in  the  national 
convention,  and,  later,  under  favoring  conditions,  his  trades 
with  the  boss  of  the  other  party  for  local  offices  may  de 
termine  the  choice  of  a  president  of  the  United  States. 

' '  This  is  the  mighty  pyramid  that  rests  upon  the  apex  of 
a  little  band  of  political  men-of-all-work  willing  to  devote 
their  entire  attention  to  the  duties  laid  out  for  them  by 
their  employer.  And  the  curious  thing  about  it  is  that  this 
delicately  balanced  pyramid  is  in  a  state  of  stable  equi 
librium.  When  disturbed  it  always  tends  to  return  to  its 
position  on  its  point,  never  to  one  on  the  broad  base  of 
popular  rule.  If  by  a  superhuman  effort  it  is  set  squarely 


60  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

upon  its  base,  it  rolls  over  on  its  point  again  as  soon  as  the 
reformers  who  righted  it  let  go  their  hold. 

"This  apparent  paradox  is  merely  the  inevitable  out 
come  of  the  principles  of  human  nature.  The  boss  wins 
because  at  each  stage  of  his  proceedings  his  forces  are 
stronger  than  those  of  his  opponents.  His  drilled  mer 
cenaries  are  more  effective  for  carrying  primaries  than 
the  undisciplined  levies,  hampered  by  the  troublesome  im 
pedimenta  of  conscientious  scruples,  that  oppose  them. 
When  the  primaries  are  carried  he  has  at  his  disposal  the 
potent  force  of  party  spirit.  His  fortunes  in  the  campaign 
are  linked  with  those  of  the  national  organization. 

"Opposition  to  his  ticket  is  disloyalty  to  the  party. 
When  he  has  attained  power  he  commands  the  alliance 
of  the  great  interests  that  consider  it  necessary  to 
stand  well  with  the  authorities ;  and  all  the  men  for  whom 
he  has  procured  office  or  other  favors,  together  with  their 
relatives  and  friends,  are  diligent  workers  in  his  behalf. 
Here,  as  everywhere,  it  is  the  first  step  that  costs.  The 
first  primaries  of  the  boss  correspond  to  the  millionaire's 
first  ten  thousand  dollars.  After  the  foothold  is  gained, 
power  flows  in  on  one  as  wealth  on  the  other.  And  even  a 
complete  victory  at  the  primaries  is  not  indispensable,  un 
less  there  is  another  boss  to  fight.  When  there  are  only 
unorganized  reformers  to  contend  with,  the  boss  can  win  if 
he  can  control  a  third  or  a  fourth  of  the  delegates  in  a 
convention.  With  that  force  available  for  trading,  only  a 
few  judicious  combinations  are  needed  to  secure  a  ma 
jority." 

There  are  other  and  yet  more  serious  obstacles  to  a  gov 
ernment  by  the  people  for  the  people.  Good  government 
is  not  always  righteous  government,  unless  we  declare  as 
righteous  that  which  brings  the  best  results.  Call  the  rule 
of  Diaz  in  Mexico  wicked  if  you  like,  call  it  selfish,  unjust, 
give  it  all  the  bad  names  in  your  vocabulary,  was  it  not  the 
best  the  country  has  had  since  the  exodus  of  the  viceroys. 


INFELICITIES    OF    POSSESSION  61 

and  can  you  or  even  Woodrow  Wilson  devise  a  better  one  ? 

We  say  to  Mexico,  you  are  in  trouble,  and  you  trouble, 
us ;  let  us  help  you,  let  us  show  you  how  to  run  a  republic 
which  is  not  a  republic  in  name  only.  Look  at  our  states 
men  and  pattern  after  us.  What  are  your  Juarez  and  Diaz 
as  compared  with  our  Taft  and  Wilson,  your  Eomero  Eu- 
bios  and  Escandons  as  compared  with  our  Ballinger  and 
Barnes?  Look  at  our  flag,  emblem  of  power  and  purity, 
salute  it  or  we  will  blow  you  to  atoms. 

We  are  too  indifferent  as  to  our  most  vital  interests. 
We  do  not  mention  the  eternal  vigilance  which  as  the  price 
of  liberty  we  have  neglected;  we  do  not  say  that  our  af 
fairs  are  conducted,  now  by  a  broken-down  war-horse,  and 
again  by  a  floating  politician,  or  by  a  judge  learned  in  the 
law,  too  learned  in  fact,  with  eyes  sharper  for  quibbles  and 
technicalities  than  for  justice,  and  who  would  under  no 
consideration  subject  a  brother  of  the  ermine  to  the  ignom 
iny  of  recall ;  or  by  a  schoolmaster  whose  class  is  congress, 
his  grammar  the  grammar  of  return  to  office,  and  at  a  most 
critical  time  makes  ministers  of  incompetents,  and  who 
becomes  delirious  over  the  wickedness  of  his  predecessors, 
darkly  hinting  that  concessions  and  apologies  must  be  made 
to  the  Spanish  Americans  in  their  blackmail  demands  in 
order  so  to  establish  himself  as  a  great  and  good  man  in 
the  eyes  of  the  world  as  shall  enable  him  to  deal  properly 
with  other  powers. 

To  escape  despotism  we  espoused  the  widest  liberty, 
which  is  license,  until  our  freedom  has  become  more  des 
potic  than  despotism. 

Our  American  national  ideals  have  become  reduced  to 
the  personal  ideals  of  pettifoggers.  Public  interests  are 
sacrificed  to  private  prejudice.  Ministers  and  agents  are 
too  often  selected  on  the  bipartisan  plan,  their  action  in 
office  proving  somewhat  farcical. 

We  call  ourselves  a  free  people.  We  are  well  enough 
off  for  money  and  are  fairly  intelligent.  We  have  plenty  of 
unoccupied  lands,  though  not  of  the  best  quality  for  a  poor 


62  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

man ;  we  have  endless  opportunity  for  the  pursuit  of  happi 
ness;  are  we  happy,  happy  in  our  honesty  and  integrity, 
happy  in  our  high  society  and  low  politics?  Some  of  us 
sometimes  may  think  we  are,  but  most  of  us  fancy  we  are 
not  altogether  satisfied. 

Thus  we  have  instead  of  a  union  of  interests  the  dis 
union  of  coteries  of  oppugnant  interests,  as  Jews,  catholics, 
Irish  labor-leaders,  hyphenated  Germans,  English  trade 
monopolists,  and  American  moneyed  men  and  controllers  of 
finance,  each  determined  so  far  as  possible  to  rule  the  others. 

There  is  the  choice,  a  central  government  based  on  a 
despotic  patriotism  strong  enough  to  intimidate  class  rule, 
and  relegate  rascality  and  greed,  whether  of  capital  or 
labor,  to  their  kennel,  or  misrule,  like  that  of  the  last  two 
terms. 

What  shall  we  say  of  a  government,  what  name  shall  we 
give  to  it,  that  permits  a  hold  up  by  organized  labor  under 
threat  of  a  general  railroad  strike,  that  submits  to  black 
mail  under  threat  of  ruining  industry  throughout  the 
country;  what  shall  we  say  of  an  executive  who  cringes 
before  a  bandit  band  while  demanding  submission  to  him 
self  from  Congress? 

Independence,  is  our  boast ;  of  what  are  we  independent  ? 
Give  us  liberty  or  death,  we  cry ;  we  have  an  abundance  of 
both.  Freedom  to  worship  God;  yes,  but  others  must  wor 
ship  as  we  do,  or  we  will  make  it  uncomfortable  for  them. 
Possession  is  nine-tenths  of  the  law,  but  if  we  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  our  own  souls  we  are  none  the  better 
off,  for  so  holy  writ  affirms;  while  theologians,  those  who 
have  studied  the  subject  anfl  should  know,  say  that  the  law 
was  made  and  our  souls  lost  before  we  were  born,  that  is 
to  say  before  there  was  any  soul. 

Politics  should  have  a  new  course  of  procedure  and  pre 
cedents,  a  new  standard  of  ethics.  Too  often  the  chief 
magistrate  has  but  little  regard  for  promises  made  previous 
to  election,  as  was  more  especially  the  case  with  the  last  two. 


INFELICITIES    OF    POSSESSION  63 

Taft  never  had  any  policies;  Wilson  changes  his  every 
day. 

Wherefore  we  may  ask  is  this  your  much  vaunted  re 
publicanism  in  these  latter  days  so  "superior  to  beneficent 
despotism,  so  superior  to  the  course  of  a  republic  which  is 
a  republic  in  name  only;  is  this  Hamilton's  idea  of  a  rep 
resentative  democracy,  or  Lincoln's  conception  of  a  gov 
ernment  of  the  people,  for  the  people,  and  by  the  people  ? 

For  political  gain,  my  patriots,  is  there  any  principle 
you  will  not  surrender  that  stands  in  your  way? 

Choose  your  name  from  any  of  the  rulings  of  nations. 
Shall  we  say  the  government  of  a  master,  like  that  of  Por- 
firio  Diaz  in  Mexico,  of  a  schoolmaster,  like  that  of  Wood- 
row  Wilson,  backed  by  submissive  southerners  in  Congress, 
or  of  a  society  figure-head  fitting  the  sham  nobility  and 
gentry  of  England,  or  of  the  devil  himself  like  that  of  the 
German  kaiser. 

The  quality  of  self-government  depends  upon  the  qual 
ity  of  self.  Bad  men  do  not  want  good  government,  and 
good  men  will  not  have  bad  government.  Selfishness  in 
office-holding,  a  craving  for  continuance  in  office  to  the  ex 
clusion  of  others  as  deserving  and  as  competent  is  not  a 
noble  quality.  Candidates  demean  themselves  in  this  re 
spect  at  every  election. 

The  republican  party  under  Taft,  and  the  democratic 
party  under  Wilson,  one  following  the  other,  and  both 
coming  immediately  after  the  reform  rule  of  Roosevelt, 
show  what  the  greatest  of  republics  is  and  what  may  fur 
ther  be  expected  from  it  without  change  of  regime. 

Let  us  not  forget,  however,  that  all  that  is  evil  may  be 
remedied,  and  probably  will  be  in  time  if  good  citizens 
will  see  the  necessity  and  rise  to  meet  the  emergencies,  en 
couragement  being  given  by  the  many  beneficial  measures 
secured  during  the  present  century,  and  nowhere  more 
than  in  California. 

The  remedy  should  be  simple,  namely  more  care  as  to 
character  in  the  selection  of  candidates  for  office;  all  the 


64  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

lower  offices  to  be  appointive,  and  so  removed  farther  away 
from  the  evil  influence  of  demagogues  and  pothouse  politi 
cians,  the  higher  officials  to  remain  in  office  during  good 
behavior  removable  by  recall,  except  the  executive  officers 
who  shall  be  limited  to  one  term,  the  length  of  which  to  be 
somewhat  extended. 

•  All  along  the  pages  of  history  we  see  the  crimes  and 
follies  of  the  rulers  bringing  destruction  upon  the  people, 
until  in  the  minds  of  those  who  think  hereditary  rulership 
seems  as  silly  and  absurd  in  one  place  as  in  another;  as 
silly  and  absurd,  though  not  so  devilish  in  an  English  king 
as  in  a  German  kaiser.  And  for  superior  merit,  or  heroism 
the  deluded  victim  is  given  a  worthless  bauble,  or  a  hollow 
title.  The  German  people  are  still  a  hotbed  of  fiendish 
fanaticism,  but  England  should  be  ashamed  even  of  the 
shell  of  royalty  she  mummifies. 

And  while  the  temporal  rulers  have  thus  enslaved  the 
body  spiritual  rulers  have  enslaved  the  mind,  and  thus 
humanity  has  been  kept  in  bondage  to  this  day,  the  fear 
of  ghosts  still  dominating  the  world. 

And  as  for  noble  deeds  and  their  compensation,  too 
often  the  reward  fails  to  hit  the  mark.  For  bringing  to 
a  close  a  great  war,  thereby  saving  a  hundred  thousand 
lives,  Roosevelt  gave  his  Nobel  prize  to  charity,  while  Root 
pocketed  his  $40,000,  which  he  in  no  wise  earned  or  de 
served.  Ford  went  to  Scandinavia  and  Root  to  Russia; 
neither  country  suffered  materially  from  their  visit. 


%  CHAPTER  IV 

GERMANY   AND   JAPAN 

DOES  the  emperor  of  Germany  imagine  that  the  world 
takes  him  seriously  when  he  assumes  the  air  of  mar 
tyr?  The  stupendous  peace  bluff  put  up  by  him  deceived 
only  those  who  wished  to  be  deceived.  It  afforded  the  Ger 
man  war  lords  an  opportunity  still  further  to  excite  the 
German  people  against  their  alleged  oppressors,  and  gives 
German  hyphenates  and  sympathizers  in  America  food  for 
further  discussion,  all  the  while  ignoring  the  hypocrisy  of 
the  kaiser  who  now  in  enforced  tears  goes  about  sorrowing 
for  the  fearful  retribution  which  awaits  the  abandoned 
wretch  who  started  this  most  diabolical  of  human  conflicts. 
Unfortunately  the  president  of  the  United  States  in  his 
efforts  for  peace,  now  affected  not  to  know  who  started 
the  war,  or  on  which  side  was  the  right.  There  are  many 
things  our  worthy  president  does  not  know,  some  of  which 
he  is  now  learning,  though  at  no  small  cost  to  the  nation. 

One  question  the  peace  propagandists  seem  never  to 
have  troubled  themselves  about,  namely,  can  Germany  fur 
nish  the  necessary  bonds  to  secure  the  world  against  the 
repetition  of  a  world  war  ?  Of  Vhat  value  is  the  word  or 
the  written  pledge  of  a  person  who  scouts  at  the  idea  of 
regarding  the  terms  of  a  treaty  whenever  he  chooses  to 
break  it? 

In  view  of  the  circumstances  it  would  seem  to  require 

some  degree  of  assurance  on  the  part  of  the  kaiser  to  ask 

for  a  renewal  of  the  treaty  of  1799.     Yet  with  Teutonic 

impudence,  which  is  only  insult,  the  kaiser  demands  as 

3  65 


66  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

the  price  of  peace  without  victory  a  guarantee  against 
being  again  attacked ! 

The  sudden  outburst  of  Japan  from  centuries  of  an 
cient  barbarism,  into  a  position  of  power  and  consideration 
among  nations  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  the  age.  Dai  Nip 
pon,  Great  Nippon,  the  land  of  the  rising  sun,  though  small 
in  extent  with  rather  diminutive  inhabitants  having  pow 
ers  of  quick  perception,  success  in  war  with  weaker  nations 
and  a  reckless  disregard  of  life  have  brought  them  to  the 
front  as  fighters  of  battles  no  less  than  conquerors  of  com 
merce  and  industry. 

Of  hara-kiri  they  have  ceased  to  see  the  significance 
and  would  now  prefer  practicing  it  on  their  enemies  rather 
than  on  themselves. 

Originally  the  office  of  mikado  was  confined  to  spiritual 
functions,  the  temporal  authority  being  vested  in  the  sho- 
gun ;  at  present  the  mikado  of  divine  origin  and  agency,  is 
sole  ruler,  temporal  and  spiritual. 

Accustomed  to  war  and  priestcraft  as  the  only  manly 
occupations,  agriculture  was  formerly  left  to  women  and 
serfs,  while  even  commerce  was  held  in  low  estimation, 
though  now  regarded  of  high  respectability  and  vast  im 
portance.  They  are  ingenious,  polite,  and  plausible,  but 
suspicious,  clannish,  and  vain  with  the  vanity  of  conscious 
inferiority. 

Withal  it  is  clear  that  Japan  is  a  force  to  be  reckoned 
with.  But  not  as  we  of  late  have  fallen  into  the  way  of 
reckoning  with  forces. 

We  are  not  yet  ready  to  admit  that  we  are  a  craven 
nation,  though  our  policy  would  seem  to  point  that  way. 
We  protest  and  we  profess,  pretending  that  we  are  above 
fighting,  until,  whether  we  deserve  it  or  not,  we  are  rele 
gated  to  the  category  of  the  world's  Great  Afraid, — afraid 
of  in  some  way  being  hurt,  hurt  in  our  person  or  our 
pocket ;  afraid  of  our  lives,  perhaps,  when  we  have  so  soon 


GERMANY   AND   JAPAN  67 

to  die  at  best,  and  when  to  live  in  constant  fear  is  to  die 
daily. 

While  all  the  world  is  up  in  arms  battling  for  their 
rights,  for  their  principles,  however  wrong  or  fallacious 
their  ideals  may  be,  we  stand  by  boasting  with  humiliating 
pride  that  we  can  keep  ourselves  out  of  war. 

But  cowards  or  not,  the  fact  is  clear  that  we  have  lately 
become  afraid  of  this  little  bunch  of  barbarians,  whom 
we  have  so  lately  veneered  with  our  western  civilization 
and  clothed  in  modern  apparel,  we  who  boast  our  hun 
dred  million  of  mixed  humanity  and  wealth  without  com 
pare,  who  still  shout  in  July  and  give  thanks  in  November, 

Nothing  so  invites  bullying  as  timidity ;  nothing  quicker 
brings  war  than  a  show  of  cowardice. 

Every  time  a  scare  appears  in  the  United  States,  Tokio 
tells  us  not  to  be  afraid.  ' '  Be  calm, ' '  says  the  prime  min 
ister,  ' '  we  will  not  hurt  you. ' '  The  foreign  policy  of  Nip 
pon  they  say  is  essentially  pacific,  which  assurance  we 
may  take  for  what  it  is  worth.  The  foreign  policy  of  today 
can  be  changed  tomorrow,  and  will  be  changed  whenever 
Japan  feels  strong  enough  to  win  at  war.  It  were  amusing 
were  it  not  serious. 

We  covet  most  what  is  beyond  our  reach.  The  Japa 
nese  place  a  high  value  on  their  dignity ;  their  sensitiveness 
also  is  great.  All  of  their  many  and  profuse  protestations 
of  friendship  are  provisional  that  their  vital  interests  and 
dignity  are  not  encroached  upon.  They  will  be  friends 
with  us  if  they  can  have  everything  their  own  way. 

It  depends  upon  what  they  regard  as  vital  interests, 
and  the  price  they  ask  for  their  dignity  whether  we  wish 
to  purchase  or  not.  If  to  loot  China  is  a  vital  interest,  we 
should  say  no.  If  to  Americanize  themselves,  own  and  oc 
cupy  our  lands,  fill  our  free  institutions  of  learning  and  be 
nevolence,  crowd  themselves  into  the  best  residential  parts 
of  the  city  to  the  disgust  of  the  people  and  to  the  dam 
age  of  property;  if  to  mingle  with  us  in  society,  breed  in 
our  midst  American  citizens,  mix  races,  become  recreated, 


68  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS. 

born  anew  into  the  so-called  citizenship,  they  or  their  prog 
eny  ;  if  in  a  word  the  price  of  their  dignity  is  to  be  received 
and  treated  as  one  of  the  most  favored  nations,  we  say  no, 
we  will  not  pay  it,  you  ask  too  much.  Had  we  so  said 
in  the  first  instance  there  would  now  be  no  whining  or 
blustering. 

In  the  development  of  the  Pacific  the  Japanese  are  des 
tined  to  be  a  perpetual  pestilence.  They  have  no  con 
science  whereby  to  regulate  right  and  wrong ;  they  have  no 
gratitude  for  or  appreciation  of  benefits  bestowed,  they 
have  no  moral  sense,  they  regard  piracy,  thievery,  trickery, 
lying,  overreaching,  or  any  sort  of  rascality  legitimate  di 
plomacy  in  dealing  with  a  weaker  nation.  Are  we  a  weaker 
nation?  Are  we  already  as  China?  Whether  weak  or 
strong,  were  it  not  better  to  have  it  out  now? 

"The  Pacific  will  be  the  theatre  of  the  greatest  national 
problem  of  the  next  four  years,  and,  of  all  states  in  the 
union,  California  will  be  most  vitally  interested/'  says 
Hamilton  Lewis,  United  States  senator  for  Illinois.  "It 
will  be  the  problem  of  Japan's  renewed  demand  for  equal 
rights  in  this  country  with  those  enjoyed  by  the  peoples 
of  other  countries  as  to  citizenship  and  land  ownership. 
It  is  a  mistake  to  turn  our  eyes  toward  Europe  and  look 
for  great  problems  to  be  solved  after  the  great  conflict 
there  has  come  to  an  end.  Those  countries  will  be  too  busy 
rehabilitating  themselves  to  be  in  a  position  to  bother  us 
materially  for  the  next  twenty  years.  But  just  as  soon 
as  the  war  is  ended  we  shall  receive  a  renewed  and  much 
more  insistent  demand  from  Japan,  which  is  growing  richer 
and  stronger  month  by  month.  This  coming  problem  is  of 
greater  moment  today,  both  to  California  and  to  the  nation, 
than  are  such  stock  political  questions  as  an  eight-hour 
law  or  the  tariff.  Are  we  going  to  accede  to  or  resist  the 
demands  that  Japan  we  know  is  going  to  make?  Believ 
ing  that  we  are  not  going  to  accede  to  them,  I  contend 
that  we  should  be  in  the  best  possible  position  to  resist. 
We  cannot  be  in  the  best  defensive  position  on  the  Pacific 


GERMANY   AND   JAPAN  69 

as  long  as  we  hold  on  to  the  Philippine  islands.  The  people 
know  that  a  democratic  administration  will  give  the  Phil 
ippine  islands  self-government  just  as  soon  as  they  are 
found  capable  of  receiving  it  at  its  true  high  value.  Keep 
ing  that  in  public  view,  we  should  make  the  Hawaiian 
islands  our  naval  outpost  on  the  Pacific.  Also  we  should 
build  a  powerful  Pacific  fleet." 

Look  at  the  trouble  we  are  having  with  Japan,  and  all 
for  nothing,  all  useless.  "We  were  doing  well  enough  with 
the  Chinese,  and  the  Chinese  were  willing  to  do  our  cheap 
work  cheaply,  and  kindly  leave  us  our  country,  our  lands, 
and  our  government,  all  of  which  the  Japanese  want. 
There  was  no  sense  whatever  in  expelling  the  Chinese  and 
admitting  the  Japanese ;  it  was  a  most  unhappy  exchange. 
It  was  the  mistake  of  the  century. 

Already  the  Japanese  have  taken  commercial  possession 
of  the  North  American  Pacific  coast  from  Vancouver  and 
Seattle  to  Mexico,  along  which  seaboard  they  have  at  pres 
ent  some  sixty-two  vessels,  more  than  double  the  number 
belonging  to  the  United  States.  For  this  perilous  and  dis 
graceful  condition  of  things  we  are  indebted  to  the  labor- 
ites,  and  to  the  administration  at  Washington. 

Another  bad  sign,  elsewhere  mentioned,  leading  in  the 
end  to  the  worst  results,  "is  their  bringing  here  their  women, 
to  occupy  houses  in  the  best  part  of  town,  where  they  breed 
like  minks,  their  progeny  being  about  as  suitable  as  minks 
for  American  citizenship.  San  Francisco  is  every  day  los 
ing  population  by  reason  of  the  influx  of  Japanese  women 
into  the  residential  districts.  Thousands  are  driven  across 
the  bay  and  into  the  country  in  consequence. 

Yamazaki,  consul  at  San  Francisco,  reporting  on  the 
recent  census  of  Japanese  in  California  undertaken  by  the 
Japanese  chamber  of  commerce,  figures  up  about  60,000; 
20,000  in  Los  Angeles  and  vicinity,  8,000  in  and  around 
San  Francisco,  3,000  in  Oakland  and  Alameda,  and  the 
remaining  29,000  in  the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin  val 
leys,  in  Stockton,  in  Fresno  county,  and  in  other  places 


70  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

adjacent  to  agricultural  regions.  The  bulk  of  the  Japa 
nese  population  in  California  is  made  up  of  ranchers  and 
farmers,  orchardists  and  allied  industries.  The  popula 
tion  of  the  state  in  1910  was  2,377,549.  At  present  it  is 
3,000,000.  According  to  a  recent  census  the  number  of 
Japanese  in  South  American  countries  and  Mexico  is  in 
Argentina,  683;  in  Chile,  305;  in  Peru,  5,482;  in  Mexico, 
2,381;  in  Brazil,  15,462. 

R.  Biasutti,  in  the  Rivista  Geografica  Italiana,  reviews 
the  conditions  under  which  the  Japanese  emigration  move 
ment  is  taking  place.  The  same  topic  was  discussed  in 
detail  in  an  article  entitled  "Die  Japanische  Auswander- 
img"  by  Ernst  Schultze  in  Petermanns  Mittettungen . 
Biasutti  assumes  that  about  800,000  Japanese  are  now  scat 
tered  outside  their  native  land.  Of  these  one-half  have 
invaded  Sakhalin,  Korea,  and  Formosa.  In  Asiatic  coun 
tries  the  inflow  of  Japanese  residents  has  become  distinctly 
a  phase  of  economic  penetration.  China  alone  contains 
over  130,000  Japanese  immigrants,  of  whom  a  good  half 
consists  of  women.  Inasmuch  as  the  ratio  of  male  to 
female  colonists  is  the  criterion  of  permanent  or  temporary 
settlement,  it  follows  that  the  Japanese  generally  go  to 
China  with  intention  of  taking  up  a  permanent  abode. 
On  the  eastern  coast  of  the  Pacific,  however,  the  propor 
tion  of  women  among  the  immigrants  is  relatively  low, 
the  highest  percentage  being  23.7  for  Mexico,  while  for 
Peru  it  is  as  low  as  3.8.  This  figure  becomes  12  per  cent 
in  the  United  States,  and  increases  to  17  per  cent  in  Can 
ada.  In  the  Hawaiian  islands  it  attains  36.5  per  cent. 

The  importance  of  the  Japanese  penetration  in  China 
can  be  realized  from  the  fact  that  60  per  cent  of  the  total 
number  of  immigrants  in  Kuantung  and  the  Manchurian 
sphere  of  Japanese  influence  belong  to  the  leading  and 
industrial  or  commercial  classes.  The  first-named  of  these 
localities  contains  between  45,000  to  50,000  Japanese  in 
habitants,  while  the  second  follows  closely  with  about  40.- 
000.  Within  the  Russian  sphere  of  influence  in  Manchu- 


GERMANY   AND    JAPAN  71 

ria  the  number  of  Japanese  dwindles  rapidly  and  rarely 
exceeds  2,000. 

Anglo-Saxon  America  as  a  field  of  colonization  for  the 
Japanese  is  closed.  Not  so,  however,  with  Latin  America, 
which  the  Asiatic  islander  is  free  to  enter,  but  where  he 
rarely  elects  to  become  permanently  domiciled.  Brazil 
alone,  among  the  Latin  American  states,  has  attracted  the 
Japanese  farmer.  In  the  countries  of  Spanish  speech  he 
usually  appears  as  a  trader  or  a  laborer.  An  agriculturist 
in  Brazil,  he  also  becomes  a  settler,  the  fact  being  revealed 
in  the  percentage  of  Japanese  women  in  this  republic,  a 
figure  which  in  1911  was  as  high  as  41.  Most  of  this 
Japanese  colonization  in  Brazil  is  confined  to  the  state  of 
Sao  Paulo,  and  is  due  to  the  possibility  of  rice  cultivation. 

Says  a  Tokio  writer:  "With  the  gentleman's  agree 
ment  barring  the  way  to  the  United  States,  Japanese  immi 
gration  has  been  flowing  in  a  growing  stream  to  South 
America,  and  has  now  reached  large  dimensions.  The 
Kiyo  Maru  of  the  Tokyo  Kaisha  service  sailed  from  Yoko 
hama  with  931  steerage  passengers  aboard,  all  of  whom, 
except  a  very  few  bound  for  Honolulu  or  San  Francisco, 
were  booked  for  South  America.  The  steamer  also  car 
ried  45  Japanese  girls  on  their  way  to  South  America  to 
become  the  brides  of  farmers  who  had  settled  there.  They 
were  selected  by  a  marriage  agency  out  of  200  applicants. 
The  fortunate  ones  were  the  survivors  of  a  strict  exam 
ination  into  their  physical  and  mental  condition  and  their 
education.  Brazil  is  most  attractive  to  the  Japanese, 
who  find  that  they  get  profitable  opportunities  there  for 
land  cultivation.  The  Japanese  community  already  num 
bers  several  thousand  according  to  reports  reaching  this 
country,  and  they  are  as  a  rule  prosperous  and  contented 
with  their  condition."  And  from  London,  this:  "Japan 
is  making  strong  efforts  to  capture  South  American  trade. 
The  latest  reports  received  in  London  show  that  the  Japa 
nese  consul  general  at  Lima  has  just  concluded  an  exten 
sive  tour  of  Chile,  Argentina,  Uruguay  and  Paraguay,  his 


72  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

object  being  to  gather  commercial  information  for  the  pur 
pose  of  improving  the  trade  between  Japan  and  those 
countries.  Two  of  the  most  powerful  Japanese  steamship 
companies  are  developing  their  service  along  the  west  coast 
of  South  America.  Prior  to  the  war  these  companies  had 
no  regular  schedules,  but  they  now  maintain  a  monthly 
service  of  steamers  having  a  tonnage  of  from  15,000  to 
20,000.  One  Japanese  line  has  also  concluded  negotiations 
for  the  purchase  of  five  Chilean  steamers. ' ' 

Results  great  or  small  follow  effort.  If  the  results 
measured  by  the  capability  of  the  individual  are  enough, 
they  may  be  called  success;  if  only  half  is  accomplished 
of  what  should  be,  we  could  hardly  call  the  result  suc 
cessful.  Japan  made  the  effort,  and  with  eminently  suc 
cessful  results. 

Are  the  Japanese  so  superior  to  us  in  every  respect,  in 
progress,  in  war,  in  trade?  No  wonder  they  think  so. 
China  and  America;  where  is  the  difference?  Both  are 
food  for  Nippon,  all  in  good  time.  As  the  editor  of  the 
San  Francisco  Chronicle  observes:  "While  we  are  selling 
heavily  to  Japan  of  the  raw  material  of  munitions  of  war, 
payments  made  by  the  belligerents  through  this  country  for 
the  finished  material  are  so  large  that  exchange  on  Japan 
is  heavily  against  us,  and  we  are  shipping  gold  to  that 
country  by  every  steamer.  Great  Britain  is  financing  all 
her  allies  except  Japan,  and  for  obvious  reasons  uses  our 
facilities  as  a  medium  for  payments.  Probably  no  one  now 
imagines  that  the  Japanese  are  not  smart.  If  there  are 
any  such  they  err.  We  do  not  recall  a  single  instance  in 
history  in  which  a  nation,  with  almost  no  loss  of  life,  made 
a  lot  of  money  by  engaging  in  a  great  war.  But  that  is  pre 
cisely  what  Japan  is  doing.  By  going  to  war  on  the  side 
of  the  allies,  she  established  herself  in  Germany's  place 
in  China,  and,  so  far  as  we  know,  the  only  Japanese  sol 
diers  killed  or  injured  in  the  war  were  the  small  number 
lost  in  conquering  the  Shantung  peninsula.  Japan  is  not, 
like  Great  Britain,  borrowing  money  to  lend  to  her  allies 


GERMANY    AND    JAPAN  73 

on  whose  soil  the  fighting  is  going  on.  On  the  contrary, 
her  people  are  occupied  in  the  manufacture  of  munitions 
which  she  sells  to  Russia  for  net  gold  at  war  prices.  And 
she  is  using  the  gold  to  build  up  her  own  merchant  marine, 
wherewithal  she  is  seeking  to  get  as  nearly  as  possible  a 
monopoly  of  the  commerce  of  the  Pacific,  which  is  thus 
far  the  one  really  safe  ocean  to  sail  ships  on.  And  by 
a  stroke  of  luck  which  no  country  had  reason  to  expect, 
Japan  has  been  mightily  helped  by  legislation  which  is 
practically  excluding  American  ships  from  competition  on 
that  ocean.  Such  a  combination  of  fool  luck  and  national 
wisdom  has  not,  we  are  sure,  been  before  this  heard  of 
among  men." 

In  commerce,  in  manufactures,  in  transportation  Japan 
is  forging  ahead  while  California  remains  comparatively 
idle,  absorbed  in  talk,  in  talking  of  the  great  things  we 
should  do,  and  can  do,  and  are  going  to  do,  and  yet  afraid 
to  talk  upon  certain  plain,  practical,  common-sense  sub 
jects  without  the  proper  settlement  of  which  there  can  be 
no  adequate  prosperity  or  progress. 

What  a  reflection  on  our  people,  our  government,  and 
the  manipulators  of  labor  that  the  Japanese  can  come  over 
here  and  in  their  own  ships  carry  away  our  raw  material, 
to  be  returned  in  manufactured  form  and  undersell  us  at 
our  own  door!  Thus  they  handle  cotton,  wool,  silk,  pulp 
wood  for  paper,  and  are  fast  covering  a  long  list  of  less 
staple  articles. 

It  is  scarcely  to  be  expected  that  the  Japanese  will  con 
tinue  their  phenomenal  development  indefinitely.  Already 
they  are  deteriorating  physically,  while  their  mentality  has 
about  reached  the  limit.  It  is  the  fate  of  all  primitive 
nations  that  they  fade,  or  are  obliterated  in  the  attempt 
to  put  on  a  superior  civilization.  In  her  frenzied  effort 
for  recognition  as  a  people  equal  to  the  best,  Japan  is  apt 
to  fall  into  mistakes  that  will  lead  to  her  downfall. 

They  differ  from  us  not  only  in  physical  characteris 
tics,  in  form,  in  features,  and  color,  but  in  mental  and 


74  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

moral  qualities;  in  religion,  conscience,  and  sense  of  right 
and  wrong.  We  need  not  trouble  to  convert  them  to  our 
ways;  they  can  take  care  of  themselves,  or  Buddha  may 
care  for  them;  we  certainly  do  not  wish  to  adopt  their 
ethics  or  idiosyncrasies.  As  Mr.  Metcalf  of  Oberlin  says : 
' '  Among  the  civilizations  of  the  world  positive  antagonism 
to  eugenics  is  hardly  to  be  expected.  Buddhism  is  too 
contemplative  to  push  anything.  Shintoistic-Buddhistic- 
Christian  Japan,  with  her  readiness  to  adopt  new  concep 
tions  if  they  look  to  national  advantage,  may  perhaps  be 
among  the  first  to  grasp  and  enforce  eugenic  ideals.  But 
for  its  real  growth  eugenics  seems,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  if 
not  of  philosophy,  to  be  dependent  chiefly  upon  Christian 
civilization.  It  is  wholly  Christian  though  not  exclusively 
so,  and  nothing  less  seems  truly  and  adequately  Christian." 

Said  Nippon  yesterday,  '  *  Move  up  on  your  school  bench 
and  give  our  lusty  fellows  room  beside  your  little  girls. 
Change  your  laws,  sell  us  your  lands,  and  let  us  be  one 
of.  you,  we,  gentlemen  Japs,  even  as  the  most  favored 
nations  or  tell  us  why  not."  Today  having  appropriated 
our  commerce  and  seeing  over  the  hills  of  the  turtle's  back 
preparedness  looming,  Nippon  says  to  Samuel,  "We  want 
your  friendship,  kind  sir;  be  calm,  we  will  not  hurt  you," 
while  Toyokichi  lyenaga  soberly  asserts,  "But  be  careful; 
our  rulers  may  not  be  able  to  restrain  the  people";  and 
so  from  the  rule  of  the  Japanese  rulers  we  must  be  gov 
erned  in  our  policy  by  the  brave  jinrikisha  boys  and  the 
chop-stick  feeders  on  the  farms.  It  was  at  once  an  insult 
and  a  threat,  this  warning  of  Toyokichi  lyenaga,  and  one 
which  never  would  have  been  made  had  not  our  apparent 
cowardice  led  the  pagans  on  to  speak  in  that  way. 

Your  so  sensitive  Japan  under  your  so  silly  gentleman's 
agreement  are  flooding  the  country  with  the  spawn  of 
pagans,  whose  votes  every  one  will  be  equal  to  the  vote 
of  the  president  who  with  impressive  ostentation  sallies 
forth  to  the  polls  to  deposit  it. 

We  should  say  to  Russia  and  Japan,  we  do  not  want 


GERMANY   AND    JAPAN  75 

war,  we  covet  nothing  you  possess,  but  you  must  keep 
your  hands  off  from  China  and  leave  her  to  her  indepen 
dence.  And  we  claim  for  ourselves  the  same  rights  we 
demand  for  China,  the  right  to  own  and  operate  our 
country  to  suit  ourselves. 

Better  fight  Japan  now  than  a  peace  pact  such  as  the 
present  administration  would  make,  which  would  bring* 
upon  us  further  humiliation  and  loss  and  final  disaster. 

We  should  say  to  Japan  once  for  all,  We  have  no  quar 
rel  with  you ;  we  do  not  want  war  with  anyone,  but  if  you 
want  to  fight  we  are  ready  at  any  time.  Of  one  thing, 
however,  you  may  rest  easy,  we  will  suffer  no  interference 
in  the  management  of  our  affairs  by  reason  of  the  super- 
sensitiveness,  or  gentleman-diplomacy,  or  kaiser  kultur,  or 
any  other  fad  or  foolishness  of  anyone. 

If  the  children  of  Nippon  desire  the  still  plainer  truth, 
and  will  profit  by  it,  they  can  have  it.  It  is  this.  We 
do  not  want  them  as  settlers  in  California,  and  will  not 
have  them.  We  do  not  hold  them  our  equal;  we  will  not 
meet  them  on  equal  terms,  or  mix  races,  or  grant  them 
such  privileges  as  are  accorded  the  most  favored  nations 
unless  we  choose  to  do  so,  and  we  do  not  thus  so  choose 
at  present.  A  democratic  congress  declines  to  maintain 
a  suitable  fighting  fleet  on  the  Pacific  lest  sensitive  Japan 
may  regard  it  an  unfriendly  act.  Well,  sensitive  Japan 
may  regard  it  as  she  likes,  the  fleet  will  be  kept  there  all 
the  same,  whenever  we  get  a  congress  worthy  of  the  honor 
and  dignity  of  the  nation. 

We  tremble  before  the  preposterous  claims  of  the  Japa 
nese,  and  by  placating  invite  still  further  demands,  instead 
of  notifying  them  plainly,  No,  we  do  not  want  you  settling 
on  our  lands,  or  mixing  races,  or  breeding  for  us  American 
citizens. 

We  have  given  you  freely  of  our  civilization,  the  free 
use  of  our  schools,  of  our  libraries,  of  our  universities, 
of  our  hospitals,  of  our  courts,  and  of  our  penitentiaries ; 


76  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

further  than  this  we  do  not  choose  to  go;  now  what  are 
you  going  to  do  about  it? 

"Do  we  want  war  or  peace?"  asks  our  worthy  execu 
tive.  And  the  answer  is  gradually  assuming  shape  in  the 
American  mind  and  heart,  "We  prefer  Roosevelt  war  to 
a  Wilson  peace." 

"Do  we  want  war  with  Japan?"  "Thrice  over  yes,  if 
peace  means  an  influx  of  this  vermin  to  sap  our  industries, 
fill  our  institutions  of  learning  and  benevolence,  appropri 
ate  our  lands  and  settle  themselves  under  our  very  nose." 

But  let  us  not  be  afraid,  or  be  too  ready  to  barter  our 
declaration  of  independence.  Should  Japan  now  attack 
the  United  States  she  would  lose  her  supremacy  in  the 
Pacific,  her  most  valuable  asset. 

Wherever  enmity  against  our  country  exists  there  may 
be  found  the  Japanese  and  the  labor  leaders  joining  hands, 
for  both  are  enemies  of  the  United  States.  Japan  has  her 
labor  unions  here  as  well  as  at  home.  Also  her  office  of 
watchful  waiting,  held  of  late  by  Baron  Suzuki,  who  is 
also  a  labor  leader,  for  our  little  yellow  friends  are  quite 
as  ready 'to  copy  our  bad  ways  as  well  as  our  good  ones. 
The  baron  says  the  United  States  needs  looking  after,  that 
our  laws  do  not  all  of  them  altogether  please  his  people, 
that  they  are  unfair,  ridiculous,  and  irritating,  and  we 
must  change  them.  This  was  a  grievous  error,  our  making 
such  laws,  a  very  proper  cause  for  war,  for  we  should  not 
irritate  sensitive  people !  Meanwhile  they  may  be  seen 
early  Sunday  morning  wending  their  way  to  the  public 
parks  to  take  and  hold  possession  of  such  play-grounds 
as  they  may  fancy,  tennis  courts,  golf  links,  and  base-ball 
fields.  They  crowd  white  children  out  of  their  seats  at 
the  free  schools,  claim  as  a  right  the  free  use  of  all  our 
institutions,  and  avoid  as  far  as  possible  any  pajmaent  for 
the  support  of  the  government,  even  through  the  help  of 
the  laborites  shirking  the  insignificant  poll-tax. 

"The  change  in  the  relations  between  Europe  and  Asia 


GERMANY    AND    JAPAN  77 

in  the  last  thirty  years, ' '  says  H.  V.  Hyndman,  -the  noted 
English  writer  and  philosopher,  has  been  so  marked,  and 
yet  so  rapid,  that  we  scarcely  understand  the  effect  which 
has  been  produced  already,  and  will  be  still  more  notice 
able  in  the  near  future. 

"One  result  of  this  terrific  war,  ending  as  it  must  in 
the  serious  weakening  of  all  the  European  powers  which 
have  possessions  in  the  eastern  continent,  will  be  to  increase 
the  relative  power  of  Asia  and  to  secure  for  her  at  an 
earlier  date  that  greater  influence  in  world  policy  which 
she  would  have  obtained  later  in  any  event.  We  are  slowly 
returning  it  would  seem  to  something  near  the  estimate  of 
Asiatic  importance  which  was  formed  by  the  old  voyagers 
and  ambassadors.  After  400  years  of  successful  commerce, 
.piracy,  and  conquest,  from  the  date  of  the  foundation  of 
the  short-lived  Portuguese  empire  of  Goa,  in  1508,  the 
tide  is  now  turning  in  favor  of  the  older  civilizations. 
China,  Japan  and  India,  with  a  population  nearly  double 
that  of  all  Europe,  including  Russia,  can  no  longer  be 
regarded  as  the  happy  hunting  ground  for  adventurous 
individuals  or  grasping  nations  of  the  white  race.  This 
possibility  has  long  presented  itself  to  the  more  far-sighted 
politicians.  In  the  early  fifties  W.  H.  Seward,  whose 
statesmanlike  management  of  the  Trent  affair  averted  war 
between  England  and  America  ten  years  later,  directed 
the  attention  of  his  countrymen  to  China  as  the  empire 
which  would  play  a  decisive  part  in  the  destinies  of  the 
human  race.  During  the  Franco-Prussian  war  of  1870 
Sir  Henry  Maine  conjured  up  a  vission  of  40,000,000  Chi 
nese,  raised  and  trained  and  armed  on  the  Prussian  model, 
inviting  the  western  barbarism  to  try  conclusion  with  them 
in  an  Armageddon  of  the  east.  But  this  was  far  from 
being  the  common  view.  Even  now  most  European  na 
tions  think  and  act  as  if  their  present  superiority  could 
be  maintained  permanently,  in  spite  of  all  recent  develop 
ment  on  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  ocean. 

"It  is  a  strange  position  indeed,  the  claims  made  by 


78  IN   THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

Japan  that  Japanese  immigrants  should  be  treated  on 
equal  terms  with  American  citizens  in  the  United  States. 
Things  are  very  different  from  what  they  were  in  1879, 
when  the  United  States  and  the  British  colonies  carried 
matters  with  a  high  hand  against  Chinese  immigrants. 

' '  China  itself  has  undergone  a  complete  political  trans 
formation.  The  Mongols  have  gone.  Pigtails,  the  sign  of 
subservience  to  the  Tartars,  have  disappeared.  The  Chi 
nese  race  proper  is  in  control  of  its  own  territory.  Rail 
ways,  chiefly  constructed  with  foreign  capital,  and  for  the 
time  under  foreign  control,  now  connect  many  of  the  great 
cities  and  their  ports. 

"But  Chinese  engineers  and  managers  are  steadily  re 
placing  the  outsiders,  and  projected  lines,  deprived  by  the 
war  of  their  skilled  superintendents  from  Belgium  and 
other  European  countries,  are  now  being  carried  forward 
by  Chinese  engineers.  Mines  and  other  industries  are  be 
ing  developed.  Armies  also  are  being  raised  and  armed 
and  trained  according  to  European  systems. 

"The  eagerness  for  progress  is  being  manifested  in  all 
directions.  Much  as  they  dislike  the  Japanese,  the  Chi 
nese  are  ready  to  learn  from  them,  and  thousands  of  Chi 
nese  students  flock  to  Japan  for  that  purpose.  Thus  400,- 
000,000  of  this  remarkable  people,  all  reading  the  same 
language,  are  now  moving  along  the  same  lines  which 
have  brought  the  very  differently  constituted  island  em 
pire  to  its  dominant  position.  Whether  China  acts  under 
Japanese  leadership,  or  under  the  guidance  of  her  own 
educated  class,  the  whole  question  not  only  of  Chinese 
emigration  but  of  Chinese  influence  generally  must  ere 
long  be  seriously  considered  by  western  nations. 

"At  the  time  of  the  Tae-Ping  rebellion  a  sort  of  prov 
erb  was  current  in  the  Chinese  cities.  First  the  Tae- 
Pings,  then  the  Mohammedans,  and  lastly  the  foreign  dev 
ils.  The  Tae-Pings  and  Mohammedans  have  long  since 
been  swept  away.  It  is  quite  possible  the  turn  of  the  for 
eign  devils  may  be  close  at  hand." 


GERMANY   AND    JAPAN  79 

What  is  civilization,  may  we  ask?  Is  Germany  civil 
ized?  What  is  Christianity?  Are  the  Germans  Christians? 
Is  civilization  a  development  of  the  better  or  the  worst 
qualities  in  man,  or  both,  or  simply  humanism, — an  evo 
lution  of  mind  or  morals,  or  something  mechanical,  as  im 
proved  machinery?  Is  Christianity  all  prattle  and  priest 
craft,  or  an  entity  achieving  results,  such  as  changing  the 
heart  and  mind  of  man  into  something  different  from  what 
God  made  them?  Is  civilization  a  transforming  entity, 
or  only  acquired  cunning  for  inventing  life-giving  and 
death-dealing  mechanisms?  And  in  the  use  of  these  life- 
giving  and  death-dealing  mechanisms  in  what  way  do  the 
Germans  differ,  in  what  way  are  they  superior  to  the 
Turks  of  Asia  or  the  savages  of  darkest  Africa?  Will  we 
require  by  reason  of  the  strange  antics  of  religion  and 
humanism  in  these  latter  days  a  new  vocabulary,  one  with 
words  to  fit  the  meaning,  or  with  some  proper  meaning 
to  give  the  words?  For  here  is  a  bag  of  conundrums  for 
the  doctors  and  the  professors  to  crack,  concerning  which 
we  shall  perhaps  know  as  much  when  they  have  finished 
as  we  do  now.  One  thing  we  may  know,  however,  with 
out  further  circumlocution;  if  Germany  is  Christian  and 
civilized,  then  hell  is  full  of  civilized  Christians. 

Germany  and  Japan  are  much  alike,  though  the  former 
is  older  in  the  sins  of  civilization,  while  the  latter  just 
emerging  from  barbarism  and  quick  to  catch  the  winning 
tricks  of  advanced  development  has  some  things  yet  to 
learn.  The  chief  difference  in  their  professions  and  policies 
is  that  the  Germans  have  kultur  with  their  mikado,  while 
the  Japanese  mikado  comes  direct  from  the  celestial  shore 
bringing  with  him  an  atmosphere  of  heaven  filled  with 
attendant  spirits  and  all  the  requisites  for  the  manufac 
ture  of  his  own  kultur  as  it  is  needed. 

They  are  well  constituted  to  work  together  in  any  raid 
ing  enterprises,  having  similar  tastes  in  blood-lust,  vandal 
ism,  and  robbery,  and  may  be  expected  to  be  seen  hunting 
in  company  many  times  during  the  next  mellennium.  Psy- 


80  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

chologically,  in  these  two  rapacious  nations,  extremes  meet 
and  unify.  Soul  structure  and  sentient  principle,  in  so 
far  as  they  exist,  seem  planted  upon  much  the  same  plane 
and  operate  along  similar  lines.  Thus  we  fail  to  find  in 
either  what  we  understand  as  conscience,  that  is  a  moral 
sense  distinguishing  right  and  wrong.  Neither  has  any 
regard  for  the  rights  of  property  or  the  rights  of  man. 
Neither  has  any  regard  for  plighted  word  or  written  obli 
gation  wherever  fancied  interests  are  involved.  In  war 
neither  has  any  regard  for  honor,  humanity,  or  decency; 
either  with  a  cowardly  blow  will  strike  down  a  weaker 
nation  and  trample  it  under  foot. 

We  have  yet  to  see  the  first  chivalrous  act,  or  hear 
expressed  the  first  noble  sentiment  by  any  things  Teutonic 
in  connection  with  this  war  in  Europe,  and  as  for  Japan's 
treatment  of  China,  it  is  treacherous,  cowardly,  and  con 
temptible. 

Standing  forth  in  bold  and  bloody  perspective,  through 
out  all  coming  ages,  as  the  crime  of  crimes,  the  sum  of 
all  crimes,  wholesale  murder,  rape,  robbery,  piracy,  lying, 
treachery,  wanton  and  merciless  cruelty  making  of  the 
German  name  and  nation  an  abomination,  hated  by  all 
peoples,  is  the  assassination  of  Belgium. 

We  are  filled  with  horror  as  we  read  of  the  human 
sacrifice  of  the  ancient  Aztecs,  some  sixty  each  year;  yet 
how  insignificant  as  compared  with  the  sacrifices  of  human 
life  by  the  kaiser-ghoul  of  Germany  in  the  twentieth  cen 
tury  of  our  Lord, — seven  millions  of  men  in  the  three 
years,  the  flower  of  Christian  Europe,  these  lives  he  is 
responsible  for,  besides  the  laying  waste  of  many  prov 
inces  and  the  unutterable  misery  inflicted  on  the  innocent 
inhabitants. 

We  have  thought  and  talked  of  the  war,  its  present, 
past  and  future,  until  we  tire  of  the  subject,  and  so  we 
are  now  beginning  to  turn  our  attention  to  what  is  likely 
to  happen  after  the  war.  Not  only  in  trade  and  finance, 
in  commerce  and  industries,  will  new  measures  appear  and 


GERMANY   AND    JAPAN  81 

new  channels  be  marked  out,  but  there  will  be  a  realign 
ment  in  religion  as  well. 

Both  Germany  and  Japan  dream  of  world  wide  domi 
nation,  but  the  dream  neither  of  one  nor  of  the  other  will 
ever  come  true.  It  is  more  likely  that  both  are  even  now 
at  the  summit  of  their  power  and  greatness.  Both  are 
feared  today  more  than  they  ever  will  be  feared  again. 
Even  now  Germany  is  having  drawn  her  serpent's  tooth, 
while  Japan  has  in  her  system  the  seeds  of  national  disease 
and  death,  being  still  not  far  enough  removed  from  sav- 
agism  to  escape  the  law  a  too  sudden  rise  always  demands. 

Baron  Takagi,  speaking  of  the  physical  condition  of 
the  Japanese  nation,  says  that  the  physique  of  the  Japa 
nese  people  has  been  falling  away  in  recent  years.  Fig 
ures  and  statistics  show  the  tendency  of  a  steady  decline. 
The  death  rate  he  estimates  has  increased  0.3  per  thousand 
as  compared  with  previous  years,  the  figures  holding  true 
both  for  men  and  women.  The  modern  manner  of  living 
is  causing  the  trouble,  the  habits  and  customs  imported 
from  the  west  not  being  suitable  to  the  Japanese  nation 
and  doing  much  to  weaken  the  physique  of  the  people. 

What  will  be  Germany 's  gain  by  the  war  ?  Nothing. 
Her  loss  is  beyond  computation,  and  is  irretrievable ;  loss 
of  honor,  loss  of  life,  loss  of  money,  prestige,  power,  and 
the  respect  of  mankind.  Farther  than  this,  instead  of 
ruling  the  world,  the  kaiser  has  sounded  the  death  knell 
of  royalty. 

Under  the  emperor  William  the  Germans  are  a  sadly 
deluded  nation,  among  whom  the  emperor  himself  is  chief 
of  hypocrites  or  of  fanatics.  "I  would  love  to  descend 
with  you  into  the  ditch,"  he  tells  his  soldiers,  "and  help 
with  the  killing,  but.  God  has  willed  it  otherwise.  He  has 
given  me  my  special  work,  which  is  to  stand  back  in  some 
safe  place  and  direct  the  butcheries.  My  life  is  too  pre 
cious  in  his  sight  to  be  risked  like  yours.  He  needs  me 
for  such  work  as  I  did  for  him  in  Belgium,  and  on  the 


82  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

ocean  with  my  submarines,  to  send  yet  more  thousands 
of  innocent  persons  to  their  death  by  a  single  shot." 

Not  only  is  Japan  dominating  the  Pacific,  but  with 
Russia  would  take  possession  of  China,  and  in  due  time 
with  half  a  billion  trained  Asiatics  wipe  white  civilization 
from  the  face  of  the  earth.  England  also  is  preparing 
for  a  huge  trade  war  to  be  leveled  against  the  United 
States  as  well  as  against  all  the  rest  of  the  world. 

"America  for  Americans,"  said  Bolivar,  echoing  the 
Monroe  sentiment;  and  now  we  hear  the  refrain  from 
over-sea.  "Asia  for  the  Asiatics." 

Quite  a  different  matter,  as  Japan  well  knows,  for 
while  the  present  so-.called  Americans  came  from  Europe, 
bringing  their  civilization  with  them, — came  hither  to  es 
cape  such  wrongs  as  the  Nipponese  delight  in  inflicting, — 
Asia  for  the  Asiatics  points  to  the  conquest  of  China  by 
the  Japanese,  a  soldier's  training  and  discipline  for  her 
400,000,000  inhabitants,  the  centralization  of  power,  and 
the  final  dominion  of  the  yellow  over  the  white  throughout 
the  world. 

In  view  of  the  alleged  profundity  of  German  wisdom 
and  foresight  the  many  mistakes  of  this  war  are  remark 
able,  some  of  which  a  bystander  can  see  that  the  kaiser 
and  his  followers  do  not  appear  to  realize, — for  example, 
in  allowing  a  superb  egotism  to  get  away  with  them;  in 
setting  a  trap  for  other  nations  only  to  fall  into  it  them 
selves;  in  placing  themselves  in  a  position  from  which 
they  could  not  recede  if  they  would ;  in  counting  so  surely 
on  the  assassination  of  Paris  before  an  adequate  force 
could  be  brought  forward  to  oppose  it;  in  reckoning  so 
positively  upon  baseness  on  the  part  of  Belgium,  being 
herself  wholly  without  honor  or  integrity  in  international 
affairs ;  in  calculating  on  the  unpreparedness  of  England ; 
in  dreaming  of  a  world  suzerainty,  and  in  other  like  hal 
lucinations. 


GBEMANY   AND    JAPAN  83 

The  kaiser  expresses  sorrow  for  him  who  has  this  war 
upon  his  conscience.  It  can  scarcely  be  the  kaiser,  he 
having  no  conscience.  Nor  Germany,  whose  people  and 
professors  see  only  righteousness  in  robbery  and  morality 
in  murder. 

The  kaiser  is  making  a  great  mistake.  German  pro 
fessors,  and  very  deep  doctors,  and  all  the  German  people 
are  making  the  mistake  of  their  lives  if  they  think  that 
posterity  will  have  any  doubt  as  to  who  caused  the  war, 
or  entertain  other  than  feelings  of  horror  and  aversion 
for  the  dastardly  part  Germany  has  played  in  all  these 
most  foul  and  murderous  proceedings. 

Assuming  divine  functions,  the  place  and  power  of 
God  on  earth,  in  his  stupendous  arrogance  and  egotism 
William  II  of  Hohenzollern  made  himself  a  monster,  be 
side  whom  all  the  whilome  scourges  of  Satan,  the  hitherto 
Alexanders  and  Ca3sars  and  Napoleons  or  even  Attila  the 
Hun  were  angels  of  light  and  mercy. 

Indians  who  used  poisoned  arrows  and  fired  from  be 
hind  a  tree  were  not  regarded  by  Germans  as  the  most 
chivalrous  of  combatants.  Now  they  do  not  consider  it 
an  indication  of  cowardice  to  dig  ditches  for  their  greater 
safety,  use  the  Zeppelin  bomb  and  poisonous  gas,  or  even 
throw  vitriol. 

The  use  of  poisoned  arrows  by  savages  was  long  ago 
denounced  as  inhuman  warfare,  but  this  was  a  mild  and 
humane  method  of  murder  as  compared  with  the  asphyxi 
ating  gases  introduced  by  the  kaiser. 

Whatever  may  the  outcome  of  the  war  the  power  and 
prestige  of  the  kaiser,  and  the  rule  of  the  Hohenzollern 
and  Hapsburg  are  doomed. 

The  Germans  invent  new  methods  of  murder,  new  im 
plements  for  the  destruction  of  human  life,  and  claim  their 
right  to  use  them '  whenever  their  fancied  interests  are  at 
stake,  regardless  of  any  rules  or  customs  appertaining  to 
civilized  warfare.  They  may  raid  an  unprotected  coast, 
sink  merchant  vessels  without  warning,  leave  their  victims 


84  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

to  perish,  use  poisonous  gases  and  employ  any  of  the  ways 
of  savagism  to  inflict  pain  or  injury  and  still  talk  of  honor 
and  German  kultur. 

Necessitas  non  habet  legem.  Necessity  has  110  law.  To 
Germany  all  things  are  necessary.  Germany  therefore 
knows  no  law.  Whatever  Germany  lacks  or  covets  is  nec 
essary;  a  nation  here,  a  city  there,  an  undefended  shore 
where  women  and  children  resort,  a  passenger  steamship 
with  the  lives  of  a  thousand  non-combatants,  gold  for  de 
pleted  coffers,  women  for  licentious  officers,  these  and  other 
like  luxuries  are  with  the  Germans  necessities.  Et  neces- 
sitas  non  habet  legem. 

Beside  the  curb  placed  on  Prussian  arrogance  the  suc 
cess  of  the  allies  signifies  the  return  of  the  Turk  to  Asia, 
leaving  Europe  all  Christian,  if  indeed  there  are  any  there 
entitled  to  the  name,  if  indeed  any  of  Europe  was  ever 
Christian. 

Let  this  be  understood  by  all  our  people,  that  neither 
Japan  nor  Germany  are  to  be  trusted,  that  their  smiles 
are  as  the  smiles  of  Satan,  and  their  protestations  and 
promises  not  worth  the  paper  they  are  written  on.  Thou 
sands  of  German  hyphenates  who  had  sworn  allegiance  to 
the  United  States  displayed  an  active  disloyalty  to  their 
adopted  country  during  the  European  war. 

Germany,  always  keen  for  a  fight,  may  this  time  be 
congratulated  on  getting  the  worth  of  her  money.  Though 
her  militarism  should  fail  of  its  purpose,  she  manages  to 
bag  a  goodly  few  of  the  enemy.  It  is  not  unlikely  that 
Japan  may  some  day  follow  her  example,  and  with  simi 
lar  results. 

But  the  kaiser  and  his  supporters  propose  in  Prussian 
supremacy  not  only  in  Europe  but  throughout  the  world, 
a  supremacy  founded  on  the  vicious  morality  of  kaiser 
kultur  and  sustained  by  Prussian  militarism,  a  sort  of  su 
premacy  the  manipulators  of  labor  aim  at  and  are  fast 
attaining  in  the  subordination  of  labor  and  the  control  of 
government  and  the  economic  interests  of  the  country. 


GERMANY   AND    JAPAN  85 

What  England  is  fighting  for,  as  Sir  Edward  Grey 
asserts,  is  a  free  Europe,  a  Europe  free  from  Prussian 
tyranny,  just  as  we  in  these  United  States  will  fight  for  a 
free  America,  free  from  every  sort  of  tyranny,  whether  of 
Japan  or  Germany,  whether  of  the  money  lords  or  of  the 
labor  lords.  The  thirty  years  we  in  California  suffered, 
and  from  which  we  were  delivered  by  Hiram  Johnson,  is 
the  last  of  its  kind,  but  a  worse  imposition  than  this  is  upon 
us,  the  tyranny  of  the  exploiters  of  the  workingmen. 

In  answer  to  Sakatani's  intimation  that  after  the  war 
Japan  would  renew  negotiations  for  the  free  emigration 
of  her  people  into  the  United  States,  Senator  Phelan  said : 
"In  diplomacy,  these  hints  of  contemplated  action  fre 
quently  are  given  out  to  test  public  sentiment  and  to  elicit 
comment.  It  would  not  be  right  to  defeat  their  purpose 
by  remaining  silent.  It  should  be  made  perfectly  plain, 
north,  south,  east,  and  west  that  the  United  States  shall 
not  relax  its  opposition  to  Oriental  immigration  and  the 
ownership  of  its  soil  by  aliens.  This  goes  to  the  very  life 
of  the  republic,  and  therefore  is  not  a  justiciable  matter. 
It  is  as  deep-seated  as  the  instinct  of  self-preservation.  It 
cannot  be  repeated  too  often,  however,  that  while  racial 
considerations  are  of  great  importance  the  economic  ques 
tion  is  perhaps  paramount.  The  men  of  Europe  who  have 
created  this  republic  have  attained  a  degree  of  civiliza 
tion  and  an  equality  of  rights  which  would  be  jeopardized 
by  the  influx  of  Asiatic  coolies,  and  under  no  circum 
stances  would  the  people  of  this  country  suffer  without 
resistance  to  any  such  calamity.  Washington  knows  this, 
and  Tokio  should  know  it.  It  is  an  impertinence  to  at 
tempt  to  force  one's  self  into  another  man's  house,  and 
I  regret  that  Admiral  Perry's  expedition  was  not  repelled. 
When  he  opened  Japan,  he  opened  a  Pandora's  box.  Japan 
has  a  great  destiny  in  Asia,  and  I  believe  she  will  wisely 
confine  her  activities  to  that  home  sphere  for  centuries 
to  come." 

Japan  wants  to  stand  on  an  equality  with  the  most 


86  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

favored  nation.  Such  recognition,  first  of  all,  can  be  of 
no  benefit  to  her  unless  she  can  sustain  herself  in  such  a 
position.  Are  her  men  equal  to  the  task,  socially  and  po 
litically;  are  her  women  equal  in  refinement  and  intelli 
gence  to  the  women  of  England  and  France? 

Well,  as  to  favored  nations,  what  nation  have  we  most 
favored  ?  Let  us  say  the  Africans.  We  rescued  them  from 
cannibalism,  made  them  our  gentle  bondmen,  taught  them 
Christianity  and  obedience,  spent  millions  to  secure  for 
them  their  freedom,  and  then  gave  them  the  ballot.  Now, 
if  they  would  fly  away  and  forever  disappear,  we  should 
be  satisfied.  Could  Japan  ask  more  ? 

"The  United  States  fortify;  by  and  by  we  take,"  is 
the  position  and  sentiments  of  the  Japanese  residents  of 
Hawaii,  according  to  S.  D.  McCray,  resident  engineer. 
"The  Japanese  there  expect  war  between  the  countries 
within  two  years  and  are  preparing  for  it, ' '  said  McCray. 
"I  am  most  familiar  with  conditions  on  the  largest  island, 
Hawaii,  although  everywhere  the  same  conditions  prevail. 
There  are  about  25,000  Japanese  men  on  Hawaii,  all  of 
them  former  soldiers.  Women  and  children  swell  the  pop 
ulation  to  about  65,000.  They  mix  with  nobody.  The 
Hawaiians  hate  them  worse  than  the  Americans  do;  the 
Chinese  hate  them  worst  of  all.  They  have  everything 
under  their  control,  from  labor  on  the  plantation  to  the 
smaller  stores  and  other  industries.  Hawaii  is  Japanized. 
We  might  as  well  wake  up  and  admit  that  the  islands  are 
not  American,  they  are  Japanese  in  everything  except  the 
government  and  the  business  of  the  very  largest  houses 
and  banks.  The  laboring  element  is  of  no  value  to  the 
country,  buying  everything  from  Japan  and  living  on  rice 
and  dried  fish.  That  is  the  reason  why  I,  like  many  other 
Americans,  have  left.  There  is  no  longer  a  chance  f6r  a 
man  with  a  white  skin." 

In  the  Tokio  Nichinichi,  upon  the  authority  of  Count 
Okuma,  are  given  the  terms  of  an  alleged  treaty  between 
Russia  and  Japan  which  indicates  the  potential  trend  of 


GERMANY   AND    JAPAN  87 

affairs  in  that  quarter.  The  article  goes  on  to  say  that 
Russia  shall  cede  to  Japan  that  section  of  the  Manchurian 
railway  between  Chang  Chun  and  a  certain  point  near 
Harbin.  This  will  afford  Japan's  south  Manchuria  rail 
way  an  easier  access  to  the  Russian  metropolis  in  Man 
churia.  Japan  shall  supply  Russia  with  arms  and  ammu 
nition  as  long  as  the  war  in  Europe  lasts.  Russia  shall 
accord  liberal  treatment  to  the  Japanese  residing  and  en 
gaged  in  business  in  eastern  Siberia  and  north  Saghalien, 
as  well  as  in  the  railway  zone  of  north  Manchuria,  and 
Russia  shall  throw  open  to  international  commerce  the 
harbor  of  Vladivostok,  and  shall  not  increase  the  arma 
ment  of  the  port  to  such  an  extent  as  would  cause  appre 
hension  on  the  part  of  Japan.  Russia  and  Japan  shall 
respect  each  other's  interests  in  Manchuria  and  Mongolia. 
Should  disturbance  arise  in  the  Russian  shere  of  influ 
ence  in  these  territories  while  Russia  is  engaged  in  the  war 
against  Germany  and  Austria,  Japan  shall,  upon  Russia's 
request,  undertake  to  pacify  the  country.  In  case  Japan 
is  obliged  to  take  necessary  measures  to  preserve  the  peace 
and  open-door  in  China,  Russia  shall  not  hinder  the  exe 
cution  of  such  measures.  Should  a  third  power  or  powers 
obstruct  such  measures,  Russia  shall,  upon  Japan's  re 
quest,  take  common  action  with  Japan  for  the  removal 
of  such  obstruction.  Such  a  treaty,  of  course,  would  be 
simply  a  treaty  of  alliance." 

"We  shall  have  to  face  the  issues  in  the  Pacific  sooner 
or  later,"  says  George  Bronson  Rea.  "We  cannot  always 
play  the  ostrich  without  a  severe  loss  of  national  prestige. 
If  we  have  any  interests  in  the  Pacific  it  is  high  time  that 
we  wake  up  and  pay  some  attention  to  them.  There  is 
every  evidence  that  the  Russo-Japanese  alliance  is  directed 
against  America.  .Our  government  alone  is  on  record  that 
we  cannot  recognize  any  impairments  of  existing  treaties 
as  applied  to  China.  One  week  after  the  receipt  of  the 
warning,  Japan  compelled  China  to  sign  two  treaties  and 
exchange  fourteen  notes,  which  did  impair  the  treaties, 


88  IN   THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

infringed  the  sovereignty  of  China  and  made  scraps  of 
paper  of  the  open-door  declaration.  The  alliance  is  there 
fore  aimed  at  us,  and  we  are  foolish  if  we  believe  the 
specious  pleas  advanced  to  conceal  its  real  meaning.  If 
we  don't  wake  up  now,  we  may  regret  it  later.  I  have 
received  information  from  the  highest  possible  British  au 
thority  that  when  the  war  is  over  Great  Britain  will  call 
Japan  to  account  for  the  violation  of  treaties  in  China. 
As  we  are  on  record,  we  cannot  fairly  shirk  our  duties 
and  permit  Britain  to  shoulder  alone  the  responsibilities 
involved.  I  am  furthermore  convinced  that  Japan  will 
attempt  to  consolidate  her  power  over  China  while  the 
war  lasts,  and  while  America  is  preoccupied  with  the 
presidential  campaign,  so  she  can  face  the  powers  after 
the  war  with  accomplished  fact.  The  officials  at  the  head 
of  the  present  Chinese  government  will  have  to  pay  their 
bill  to  Japan  for  the  assistance  rendered  in  punishing 
Yuan.  The  demand  for  a  new  cabinet  in  Japan  headed  by 
Count  Terauchi  who  gave  the  coup  de  grace  to  the  inde 
pendence  of  Korea  means  that  the  miltarists  and  bureau 
crats  want  a  man  who  can  carry  through  the  same  pro 
gramme  in  China.  The  only  thing  that  will  hold  Japan 
in  check  is  public  opinion  and  publicity.  If  she  succeeds 
in  dominating  China  at  this  time  it  will  be  difficult  to 
dislodge  her  and  the  day  will  be  hastened  when  she  will 
determine  to  settle  other  issues  pending  with  us.  I  am 
trying  to  present  the  American  viewpoint.  This  is  the 
sole  object  in  sending  you  these  articles.  Japanese  pub 
licists  in  America  are  certain  to  deny  what  their  astute, 
ambitious  statesmen  are  evidently  planning  to  do.  I  am 
basing  all  my  articles  on  the  admission  of  the  Japanese 
themselves  so  I  cannot  be  misinterpreted." 

Should  Japan  and  Russia  form  an  alliance,  and  take 
over  China,  centralizing  her  power  and  training  her  people 
in  the  arts  of  industry  and  war,  America  and  Europe  will 
have  their  hands  full  attending  to  their  affairs  at  home. 
And  for  neglecting  our  opportunities  and  failing  to  assert 


GERMANY   AND   JAPAN  89 

our  manhood,  reposing  meanwhile  in  a  fool's  paradise  of 
peace,  let  posterity  anathematize  us. 

Ernst  Haeckel  voiced  the  true  opinion  of  the  better 
class  of  German  scholars  regarding  military  selection,  by 
which  the  best  young  men  of  the  nation  are  led  forth  for 
slaughter  while  the  unfit  are  left  unmolested,  but  which 
sentiments  they  were  all  obliged  to  retract  upon  their  en 
forced  conversion  to  kaiserism.  Haeckel  said :  '  *  This  in 
famous  militarism,  the  cancer  of  contemporary  Europe, 
has  assumed  an  absolute  and  unprecedented  preponder 
ance  since  universal  military  service,  a  republican  insti 
tution,  has  been  united,  forming  the  most  monstrous  of 
hybrids,  with  the  permanent  army  that  serves  absolutist 
and  dynastic  ends.  If  anyone  should  dare  to  propose  to 
put  to  death  at  birth,  as  the  Spartans  and  the  redskins 
did,  imperfect  infants  of  whom  a  miserable  existence  could 
surely  be  predicted,  our  self-styled  humanitarian  civiliza 
tion  would  rightly  give  a  cry  of  indignation.  But  this 
same  humanitarian  civilization  finds  it  quite  natural  that 
with  each  explosion  of  war  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
the  most  vigorous  youths  should  be  exposed  to  the  chances 
of  battle.  And  why,  I  demand,  is  this  flower  of  the  popu 
lation  massacred?  Generally  for  ends  that  have  not  the 
slightest  thing  in  common  with  the  aims  of  humanity,  and 
which  should  be  removed  from  the  path  of  every  really 
civilized  people,  in  many  cases  for  purely  dynastic  inter 
ests,  which  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  real  happiness  of 
the  nations  that  have  been  hurled  against  each  other." 

Says  George  Brandes,  the  Danish  critic :  ' '  From  a  few 
words  I  recently  wrote  in  a  Norwegian  magazine,  in  which 
I  expressed  a  doubt  as  to  this  being  the  last  war  on  earth, 
and  hinted  that  the  madness  in  Europe  might  fail  to  usher 
in  a  reign  of  true  justice,  several  of  the  newspapers  have 
concluded  that  I  consider  it  hopeless  to  struggle  against 
war.  Indeed,  that  I  look  upon  war  as  a  beneficent  force. 
I  merely  remarked  that  human  nature  evolves,  but  only 


90  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS     . 

very  slowly,  for  the  better.  Man  is  by  nature  but  a  higher 
sort  of  beast  of  prey,  an  evolved  ape.  But  this  remark 
does  not  imply  that  I  believe  humanity  will  never  be  able 
to  rid  itself  of  war,  or  of  the  fashion  to  prey.  Yet  one 
thing  is  certain.  The  methods  which  the  European  na 
tions  have  been  using  of  late  will  not  bring  them  very 
much  nearer  to  their  goal.  The  allies  claim,  in  chorus, 
that  their  object  is  to  crush  Prussian  militarism.  But  as 
surely  as  two  and  two  make  four,  militarism  cannot  be 
crushed  by  militarism.  All  attempts  to  do  so  have  been 
fruitless,  insane  even.  But  there  is  no  reason  to  infer 
that  militarism  will  never  be  eradicated.  Merely  that  it 
will  be  accomplished  in  a  totally  different  way. ' ' 

Lord  Beresford  remarks  in  regard  to  Germany's  lack 
of  foresight :  "I  wish  people  had  listened  to  me  before 
the  war.  I  think  it  might  have  been  averted;  anyway 
we  escaped  a  most  appalling  danger.  If  the  Germans 
had  attacked  us  first  without  a  declaration  of  war,  and 
sent  what  they  could  have  sent,  140  cruisers  and  armed 
merchantmen  on  to  our  unprotected  trade  routes,  we  would 
have  been  brought  to  our  knees  in  a  couple  of  months; 
they  would  have  put  down  a  thousand  ships  in  the  first 
week,  and  if  we  had  had  three  times  the  number  of  dread- 
naughts  it  would  have  availed  us  nothing.  In  pointing 
this  danger  out  for  years,  I  have  always  told  my  country 
men  as  I  have  told  you,  that  an  empire,  like  a  man,  can 
be  killed  as  easily  by  cutting  an  artery  as  by  a  stab  in  the 
heart.  I  have  always  thought  that  the  German  emperor 
could  not  have  been  in  Berlin  at  the  moment  the  Junkers 
had  made  everything  ready  for  this  war;  if  he  had  he 
would  have  sent  for  Tirpitz,  and  on  telling  Tirpitz  that 
the  British  neither  would  nor  could  not  fight,  Tirpitz 
would  have  replied:  'I  have  got  to  think  of  what  they 
may  or  may  not  do.  Do  not  go  to  war  for  another  three 
weeks;  give  me  time  to  get  all  our  cruisers  and  armed- 
merchantmen  on  the  trade  routes;  if  the  British  do  not 
fight  we  can  order  our  vessels  home;  if  the  British  do 


GERMANY   AND   JAPAN  91 

tight  we  have  got  them.'  If  the  Germans  had  caried  out 
that  plan  they  could  have  got  into  Paris,  compelled  peace 
with  France,  and  then  been  in  St.  Petersburg  in  a  short 
time  and  become  the  dominant  power  of  Europe  and  the 
world  possibly  for  a  century." 

To  the  allies  the  situation  looked  dark  indeed  at  times, 
but  they  seemed  always  determined  as  ever  not  to  talk 
of  peace  without  victory,  never  to  lay  down  their  arms 
without  sufficient  guarantee  against  a  repetition  of  the 
horrors  of  the  last  three  years. 

The  problem  of  Prussian  militarism  has  not  been 
reached.  It  is  in  the  blood  of  the  German  people,  in  the 
soil  that  nourishes  them,  in  the  air  they  breathe.  Exter 
minate  it  and  it  will  crop  up  again  like  noxious  weeds. 
Until  hereditary  rulership  is  abolished  the  world  cannot 
safely  go  unarmed. 

It  is  but  one  of  our  several  stupidities,  that  with  ten 
millions  of  our  best  young  men  selected  for  the  slaughter 
and  a  consequent  scarcity  of  laborers  that  the  Chinese,  the 
best  material  in  the  world  to  fill  the  void,  are  excluded, 
and  the  worst  element,  the  picture-bride  breeders  of  Japa 
nese  for  American  citizenship  are  admitted. 

What  has  Japan  ever  done  to  warrant  her  demand  for 
high  place  among  the  nations  ?  If  she  wishes  to  be  regarded 
as  something  superior,  why  does  she  not  go  and  help  Rus 
sia  to  win  the  war  instead  of  remaining  at  home  to  capture 
commerce  and  manufacture  wealth?  So  sensitive!  And 
yet  the  only  nation  that  makes  money  out  of  the  world 's 
overwhelming1  misfortunes.  China  offers  fighting  men  for 
France;  Japan  puts  forward  trifling  excuses. 

And  as  for  William  of  Germany,  his  name  will  go  down 
in  history  to  remotest  ages  as  the  greatest  fiend  in  human 
form  that  ever  offered  a  prayer  to  the  God  of  Israel  over  a 
holocaust  of  innocent  victims. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  STILL  SMALL  VOICE 

A  ND  he  said,  go  forth  and  stand  upon  the  mount  before 
1\  the  Lord.  And  behold  the  Lord  passed  by,  and  a 
great  and  strong  wind  rent  the  mountains,  and  brake 
in  pieces  the  rocks  before  the  Lord,  but  the  Lord  was  not 
in  the  wind;  and  after  the  wind  an  earthquake,  but  the 
Lord  was  not  in  the  earthquake ;  and  after  the  earthquake 
a  fire,  but  the  Lord  was  not  in  the  fire;  and  after  the  fire 
a  still  small  voice. ' ' 

It  was  the  same  still  small  voice  that  Elijah  heard, 
as  he  lay  cast  down  and  discouraged  in  his  cave,  which 
was  breathed  into  the  aching  hearts  of  our  people  during 
the  silent  nights  that  followed  the  earthquake  and  the 
fire,  which  should  be  those  of  the  cataclysm  that  came  to 
San  Francisco  in  the  year  1906. 

For  while  thanking  God  for  the  safety  of  loved  ones, 
family  and  friends,  the  bald  fact  stared  them  in  the  face 
that  there  was  nothing  to  eat;  with  merciless  insistency, 
more  and  more  each  hour,  the  fact  returned  to  them  that 
they  were  ruined ;  yet  the  bread-winner  must  wear  a  brave 
front  before  wife  and  children,  and  smile  on  going  forth 
to  mingle  with  the  other  thousands  bankrupted  in  a  mo 
ment  like  himself  through  no  fault  of  theirs.  To  them 
spake  the  still  small  voice. 

It  was  not  the  loss  of  property  that  hurt.  Many  more 
before  this  had  met  with  greater  loss  and  had  laughed  to 
scorn  any  idea  of  giving  up, — had  braced  up  and  gone 
forth  to  double  their  former  wealth.  But  here  was  a  dif 
ferent  matter.  Only  the  charred  earth  for  miles  around 

92 


THE    STILL    SMALL    VOICE  93 

marked  where  yesterday  stood  a  proud,  prosperous  city, 
now  ashes  like  their  hearts.  With  varying  fortunes  hith 
erto  they  had  made  and  lost,  but  they  had  always  had 
enough  to  enable  them  to  bestow  upon  those  dependent 
upon  them  the  comforts  and  blessings  of  life. 

The  city  at  the  time  of  its  destruction  was  half  a  cen 
tury  old,  many  of  its  builders  were  of  that  age,  some  older, 
some  younger.  Many  had  passed  away,  leaving  a  little 
fortune,  seldom  out  of  debt,  to  inexperienced  women  and 
minors,  who  too  often  made  short  work  of  it,  spending, 
scattering,  listening  to  the  advice  of  friends,  and  making 
bad  investments. 

To  begin  life  anew  after  reaching  middle  age,  after 
having  started  on  the  downward  grade,  is  a  serious  matter ; 
to  so  begin  without  money  is  almost  sure  to  invite  failure. 
Such  a  man  is  handicapped.  He  has  experience,  but  expe 
rience  opens  for  him  no  bank  account.  He  can  serve, 
and  work,  and  give  sound  advice,  but  he  is  eyed  askance 
by  the  young  and  enterprising,  to  whom  the  world  of  for 
tune  belongs.  "Old  men  are  only  in  the  way;  give  us 
something  that  can  get  around  lively,"  forgetful  that  but 
for  what  these  old  men  had  done  for  them  they  would 
be  poorly  off  indeed;  that  instead  of  riding  high  in  pride 
and  arrogance  they  would  be  sweating  in  shirt-sleeves,  if 
indeed  they  ever  so  much  as  existed  at  all. 

These  so  lately  happy  and  well-to-do  citizens  of  middle 
age  or  more,  artisans,  shop-keepers,  merchants  and  manu 
facturers  perhaps,  respectable  and  respected,  the  bone  and 
sinew  of  the  commonwealth,  numbered  by  thousands,  each 
possessor  of  a  house  and  lot,  let  us  say,  the  house  partly 
paid  for  and  insured,  the  lot  mortgaged.  The  fire  takes  the 
house  and  the  builder  takes  the  money,  leaving  a  naked  lot 
mortgaged  for  more  than  it  will  sell  for  as  the  total  assets 
of  this  so  lately  prosperous  citizen,  who  is  now  without 
place  or  occupation. 

Such  was  the  situation  of  a  large  proportion  of  the 
people  of  San  Francisco  after  the  fire.  And  what  could 


94  IN   THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

they  do?  How  many  of  them,  started  forth  courageously 
to  build  and  establish  themselves  again  only  to  fall  by 
the  way?  How  many  bright  prospects  disappeared,  how 
many  expectations  were  wrecked  by  unhealthy  habits,  how 
many  minds  were  overturned  and  hearts  broken  by  des 
pair  ?  How  many  went  down  to  their  death,  when  all  within 
was  long  since  dead,  meeting  their  misfortunes  with  calm 
ness,  and  performing  all  their  duty  as  best  they  were  able 
to  the  last  moment? 

None  will  ever  know.  We  make  our  boast  that  but 
few  were  killed  by  the  earthquake,  but  of  the  many  who 
died  from  broken  hearts  no  record  was  made.  Let  us  hope 
that  by  them,  by  those  who  fell  to  rise  no  more  as  well 
as  by  those  who  had  strength  given  them  to  gird  up  and 
renew  the  battle  of  life,  let  us  hope  that  the  still  small 
voice  was  heard  giving  courage  and  consolation. 

Hope  lost,  all  is  lost.  Despair  is  the  end  of  effort. 
With  good  name  preserved,  old  age  and  illness  still  in  the 
distance,  loss  of  property  is  no  serious  affair,  and  so  young 
and  lusty  San  Francisco  rose  from  the  ashes,  though  many 
good  souls  were  buried  beneath  them. 

Of  the  many  more  fortunate  ones  who  of  their  time 
and  substance  gave  to  those  who  had  nothing ;  of  the  many 
devoted  men  and  women  who  sheltered  the  houseless,  fed 
the  hungry,  nursed  the  sick,  who  perchance  having  noth 
ing  else  to  give  gave  themselves,  hath  not  the  recording 
angel  their  names  all  written  in  his  book? 

I  was  asked  at  the  time  to  write  the  history  of  this 
freak  of  fate,  but  I  said,  "No,  let  us  forget  it."  Often 
it  is  more  profitable  to  forget  than  to  remember,  though 
it  may  be  sometimes  more  difficult.  As  for  the  psychol 
ogy  of  God's  providence  as  displayed  in  the  scourgings  of 
humanity,  let  the  German  professors  and  spiritualistic 
teachers  of  Harvard  talk  on  about  it.  What  they  say  does 
no  particular  harm,  as  few  students  of  sense  take  them 
seriously. 

Of  cities  in  general,  however,  and  of  San  Francisco 


THE    STILL    SMALL   VOICE  95 

in  particular,  I  might  here  say  that  it  is  now  ten  years 
and  more  since  the  grand  catastrophe,  and  that  while 
there  are  still  many  vacant  lots  of  ghastly  aspect  where 
once  worked  busy  bees  of  industry,  there  are  many  fine 
building  in  places  which  the  fire  did  good  service  in  clear 
ing  away. 

While  we  had  only  a  little  earth's  disturbance  as  the 
origin  and  attendant  on  our  fire,  many  of  the  great  con 
flagrations  of  the  world  have  had  the  horrors  of  pestilence 
to  endure  as  well.  Thus  in  St  Louis,  in  1849,  when  the 
business  district  of  the  city  was  burned,  the  Asiatic  cholera 
was  raging,  resulting  in  5,000  deaths  out  of  a  population 
of  60,000;  which  however  did  not  delay  the  court-martial 
of  John  Charles  Fremont  for  misdeeds  in  California,  and 
who  but  for  the  love  of  Jesse  Benton  would  later  have 
come  to  still  greater  grief. 

Nor  did  it  prevent  Isaac  H.  Sturgeon  at  the  same  time 
from  introducing  resolutions  which  were  passed  by  the 
city  council  calling  a  national  convention  for  considering 
the  project  of  a  Pacific  railroad,  at  which  Douglas  Thomp 
son  of  Indiana  and  Benton  made  flamboyant  speeches. 

"Let  us  beseech  the  national  legislature,"  cried  Ben- 
ton,  "to  build  the  great  road  upon  the  great  national  line, 
which  suits  Europe  and  Asia,  the  line  which  will  find  on 
our  continent  the  bay  of  San  Francisco  at  one  end,  St 
Louis  in  the  middle,  the  national  metropolis  and  great 
commercial  emporium  at  the  other  end,  the  line  which  will 
be  adorned  with  its  crowning  honor,  the  colossal  statue 
of  the  great  Columbus,  whose  design  it  accomplishes,  hewn 
from  the  granite  mass  of  a  peak  of  the  Rocky  mountains, 
overlooking  the  road,  the  pedestal  and  the  statue  a  part 
of  the  mountain,  pointing  with  outstretched  arm  to  the 
western  horizon  and  saying  to  the  flying  passenger,  there 
is  the  east,  there  is  India!" 

"  Benton 's  attitude  was  grand,  says  an  admiring  lis 
tener,  as  he  delivered  this  peroration;  but  the  statue  of 
Columbus  is  not  yet  hewn,  and  the  statue  of  Benton  him- 


96  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

self,  in  the  beautiful  La  Fayette  park  of  St  Louis,  is 
looking  down  at  a  scroll,  instead  of  having  his  erect  atti 
tude  and  impressive  presence,  as  he  stretched  out  his  arm 
at  the  close  of  one  of  the  most  brilliant  speeches  of  his  life. ' ' 

How  wide  flies  the  arrow  from  where  it  was  aimed! 
Directed  toward  Washington  this  dart  of  providence  fell 
into  a  shop  at  Sacramento  where  it  struck  steel  in  the 
person  of  Collis  Huntington. 

This  Pacific  railroad  convention  held  amidst  the  debris 
of  a  calamitous  season,  was  one  of  the  aids  in  educating 
the  American  people,  but  when  thirteen  years  later,  Con 
gress  acted  on  the  question,  the  civil  war  threw  the  line 
north  of  the  city,  and  for  years  after  its  completion,  St 
Louis  was  practically  ignored  by  the  enterprise,  which  it 
had  been  most  persistent  in  urging  upon  the  attention  of 
the  country. 

There  had  been  some  discussion  as  to  improving  and 
beautifying  the  city  of  San  Francisco  prior  to  the  catas 
trophe  of  April  18th.  Landscape  architects  had  been  con 
sulted,  proposals  considered,  and  preliminary  plans  drawn. 
Therefore  when  on  that  day  the  city  was  swept  by  fire, 
obviously  it  was  the  opportune  moment  for  the  requisite 
changes  in  the  rebuilding.  For  a  brief  period  enthusiasm 
waxed  warm.  It  helped  to  mitigate  the  blow,  this  fencing 
with  fate.  Let  the  earth  shake,  and  fires  burn,  we  will 
have  here  our  city,  better  and  more  beautiful  than  ever, 
and  more  valuable,  an  imperial  city  of  steel  it  shall  be, 
and  thus  will  we  get  even  with  the  misfortunes  of  this  day. 

Reform  in  the  rebuilding  was  needed,  whatever  should 
be  the  scale  of  beauty  or  utility  decided  upon.  Fifty  years 
ago  the  elevating  influences  of  tasteful  environment  were 
not  so  highly  appreciated  as  now,  and  all  large  cities  are 
fifty  years  old  or  more.  All  large  cities,  as  a  rule,  had 
their  beginning  with  narrow,  crooked  streets  and  mean 
houses.  In  Europe  and  Asia  there  are  aggregations  of 
humanity  whose  domiciles  have  remained  unchanged,  one 


THE    STILL    SMALL   VOICE  97 

might  almost  say  uncleansed,  for  hundreds  or  thousands 
of  years,  or  ever  since  their  mythical  beginning,  save  only 
for  the  covering  of  the  debris  of  dead  centuries. 

These  ancient  towns,  mostly  offspring  of  feudalism,  begun 
under  castle  walls  and  continued  after  walls  and  castle  had 
crumbled,  as  their  area  enlarged,  with  some  improvements, 
perhaps,  in  the  suburban  parts,  still  retained  this  patch 
of  medievalism,  until  obliterated  by  war,  or  fire,  or  later 
by,  modern  progress.  Look  at  Edinburgh,  for  example. 
With  all  its  Scotch  thrift  and  neatness,  there  yet  remains 
the  ill-conditioned  and  once  filthy  quarter,  beside  which 
rise  the  old-time  ten-story  houses  built  into  the  hillside, 
while  in  the  modern  part  of  the  city  in  sharp  contrast  are 
broad  streets  and  open  squares  and  fine  buildings. 

In  America  the  birth  of  towns  is  quite  different.  Here 
are  no  plantings  of  trembling  poverty  under  lordly  walls, 
but  bold  pioneering,  forecasting  agriculture  and  com 
merce;  no  Babel  building,  with  "Go  to,  let  us  build  here 
a  Cleveland  or  a  Cincinnati,"  but  rather,  "Here  for  the 
present  we  will  abide."  If,  however,  serfdom  and  medise- 
valism  were  absent  in  New  World  town-planting,  so  also 
were  aastheticism  or  any  appreciation  of  the  beautiful 
apart  from  the  useful.  Old  cities  require  reconstruction 
to  make  them  what  modern  taste  and  intelligence  demand ; 
settlements  in  their  incipiency  are  dominated  by  their 
sturdy  founders,  who  usually  have  other  things  to  think 
about  than  beauty  and  adornment. 

In  this  day  of  great  wealth  and  wonderful  inventions 
we  realize  more  and  more  the  value  of  the  city  to  man 
kind,  and  the  quality  of  the  city  as  a  means  of  culture. 
Cities  are  not  merely  marts  of  commerce;  they  stand  for 
civility;  they  are  civilization  itself.  No  untried  naked 
Adam  in  Eden  might  ever  pass  for  a  civilized  man.  The 
city  street  is  the  school  of  philosophy,  of  art,  of  letters; 
city  society  is  the  home  of  refinement.  When  the  rustic 
visits  the  city  he  puts  on  his  best  clothes  and  his  best 
.manners.  In  their  reciprocal  relations  the  city  is  as  men 

4 


98  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

make  it,  while  from  the  citizen  one  may  determine  the 
quality  of  the  city.  The  atmosphere  of  the  city  is  an 
eternal  force.  Therefore  as  we  value  the  refinement  of 
the  human  mind,  the  enlargement  of  the  human  heart, 
we  shall  value  the  city,  and  strive  so  to  build,  and  adorn, 
and  purify,  that  it  may  achieve  its  ultimate  endeavor. 

Civic  betterment  has  long  been  in  progress  among  the 
more  civilized  communities  through  the  influence  of  cul 
tured  people  capable  of  appreciating  the  commercial  as 
well  as  the  aesthetic  value  of  art.  Vast  sums  have  been 
spent  and  great  results  accomplished,  but  they  are  nothing 
as  compared  with  the  work  yet  to  be  done — work  which 
will  continue  through  the  ages  and  be  finished  only  with 
the  end  of  time. 

And  not  only  will  larger  wealth  be  yet  more  freely 
poured  out  on  artistic  adornment,  but  such  use  of  money 
will  be  regarded  as  the  best  to  which  it  can  be  applied. 
For  though  gold  is  not  beautiful  it  can  make  beauty,  even 
that  beauty  which  elevates  and  ennobles,  which  purifies 
the  mind  and  inspires  the  soul.  Progress  is  rapid  in  this 
direction  as  in  many  others.  A  breach  of  good  taste  in 
public  works  will  ere  long  be  adjudged  a  crime.  For  al 
ready  mediaeval  mud  has  ceased  to  be  fashionable,  and  the 
picturesque  in  urban  ugliness  is  picturesque  no  longer.  All 
the  capitals  of  Europe  have  had  to  be  made  over,  Hauss- 
mannized,  once  or  several  times.  Our  own  national  capital 
we  should  scarcely  be  satisfied  with  as  its  illustrious 
founder  left  it. 

It  is  a  hopeful  sign  amidst  some  discouraging  ones  that 
wealth  as  a  social  factor  and  measure  of  merit  is  losing 
something  of  its  prestige ;  that  it  is  no  longer  regarded  by 
the  average  citizen  as  the  supreme  good,  or  the  pursuit 
of  it  the  supreme  aim  in  life;  there  are  so  many  things 
worth  more  than  money,  so  many  human  aspirations  and 
acquirements  worthy  of  higher  considerations  than  the  in 
ordinate  cravings  of  graft  and  greed.  Hoarded  wealth 


THE    STILL    SMALL   VOICE  99 

especially  is  not  so  worshipful  today  as  it  was  yesterday, 
while  the  beautiful  still  grows  in  grace — the  beautiful  and 
the  useful,  compelling  improvement,  always  engendered 
by  improved  environment. 

Some  cities  are  born  in  the  purple — rare  exceptions  to 
the  rule.  San  Francisco  is  not  one  of  these.  Petrograd, 
the  city  of  palaces,  of  broad  avenues  and  granite-faced 
quays,  whose  greatest  afflictions  are  the  occasional  over 
flow  of  the  Neva  and  the  dynamite  habit,  was  spoken  into 
being  by  a  monarch.  Necessity  stands  sponsor  for  Venice, 
the  beautiful,  with  her  streets  of  water-ways  and  airs  of 
heavenly  harmony ;  while  nature  herself  may  claim  mother 
hood  of  Swedish  Stockholm,  brilliant  with  intermingling 
lakes,  islands  and  canals,  rock  hills  and  forests,  rendering 
escape  from  the  picturesque  impossible. 

Penn  planted  his  Quakers  about  1682,  long  before  many 
of  the  present  large  cities  in  America  were  begun,  yet 
Philadelphia  was  one  of  the  few  sketched  in  such  gener 
ous  proportions  that  little  change  was  afterwards  necessary 
to  make  it  one  of  the  most  spacious  of  urban  common 
wealths.  With  this  example  before  him  came  in  1791,  more 
than  a  century  later,  the  father  of  his  country,  who  per 
mitted  his  surveyors  so  injudiciously  to  cover  the  spot  on 
the  Potomac  which  he  had  chosen  for  the  capital  city  of 
the  republic  as  to  require  much  expensive  remodeling  later. 
Yet  what  American  can  drive  about  Washington  now  and 
say  it  is  not  worth  the  cost?  Further,  as  an  example,  the 
repeated  reconstruction  and  adornment  of  the  national 
capital  by  Congress  are  priceless  to  the  whole  United 
States,  the  government  therein  bearing  witness  to  the  value 
of  the  beautiful.  And  if  of  value  on  the  Potomac,  is  it  not 
equally  so  at  the  portal  of  the  Pacific? 

A  few  other  cities  there  have  been  which  have  arisen 
at  the  command  of  man,  potentate  or  pirate,  besides  those  of 
the  quaker  Penn  and  the  tzar  Peter — Alexandria,  the  old 
and  the  new,  with  Constantinople  between ;  the  first  by  or 
der  of  the  poor  world  conqueror,  at  the  hands  of  the  archi- 


100  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

tect  Dinocrates,  two  or  three  centuries  before  Cassar,  Cleo 
patra,  and  Antony,  but  made  fit  for  them  and  their  chariots 
by  streets  a  hundred  feet  wide. 

The  Danube  is  the  mother  of  many  cities,  directing 
the  destiny  of  nations,  from  the  Iron  Gate  to  the  Golden 
Horn.  Vienna  has  been  made  brilliantly  modern  since 
1858.  Beside  the  sufferings  of  Constantinople  our  little 
calamity  seems  tame.  Seven  times  during  the  last  half 
century  the  city  has  been  swept  by  fire,  not  to  mention 
earthquakes,  or  pestilence,  which  on  one  occasion  took  with 
it  three  hundred  thousand  lives.  Yet  all  the  while  it  grows 
in  magnificence  faster  than  the  invisible  enemies  of  Mo 
hammed  can  destroy  it.  But  for  these  purifying  fires 
the  city  would  still  be  one  of  narrow,  filthy  streets  and 
vile  smells,  reeking  with  malaria.  The  Golden  Horn  of 
the  Bosporus  possesses  no  greater  natural  advantages  than 
the  Golden  Gate  of  San  Francisco,  nor  even  so  great.  The 
industrial  potentialities  of  the  former  are  not  to  be  com 
pared  with  those  of  the  latter,  while  for  healthful  airs 
and  charming  environment  we  have  all  that  earth  can 
give,  and  therewith  should  be  content. 

Cities  have  been  made  as  the  marquis  of  Bute  made 
Cardiff,  by  constructing  a  dock  and  ship  canal,  and  con 
verting  the  ancient  castle  into  a  modern  palace.  Many 
towns  have  been  started  as  railway  stations,  but  few  of 
them  attained  importance.  Steamboat  landings  have  been 
more  fortunate.  Some  cities  owe  their  origin  to  war,  some 
to  commerce,  and  not  a  few  to  manufactures.  Fanati 
cism  has  played  a  part,  as  in  India  and  parts  of  Africa, 
where  are  nestings  of  half-savage  humanity  with  a  touch 
of  the  heavenly  in  the  air.  Less  disciplined  are  these  than 
zion-towns,  but  nearer  the  happiness  of  insensibility — the 
white-marbled  and  jeweled  Taj  Mahal,  Agra  on  the  Jumna, 
and  Delhi,  making  immortal  Jehan  the  builder,  with  his 
pearl  mosque  and  palace  housing  the  thirty-million-dollar 
peacock  throne;  Benares,  on  the  Ganges,  a  series  of  ter 
races  and  long  stone  steps  extending  upward  from  the 


THE    STILL    SMALL   VOICE  101 

holy  water,  while  rising  yet  higher  in  the  background  are 
temples,  towers,  mosques,  and  palaces,  all  in  oriental  splen 
dor.  Algiers,  likewise,  an  amphitheatre  in  form,  might 
give  San  Francisco  lessons  in  terrace  construction,  having 
hillsides  covered  with  them,  the  scene  made  yet  more  strik 
ing  by  the  dazzling  white  of  the  houses.  After  the  place 
became  French,  the  streets  were  widened  and  arcades  es 
tablished  in  the  lower  part. 

In  fact,  the  French  believe  in  the  utility  of  beauty, 
and  in  Paris  at  least  they  make  it  pay.  The  entire  ex 
penses  of  the  municipal  government,  including  police  and 
public  works,  are  met  by  the  spendings  of  visitors.  To 
their  dissolute  monarchs  were  due  such  creations  as  the 
Tuileries,  the  Louvre,  and  Versailles.  Have  we  not  dis 
solute  millionaires  enough  to  give  us  at  least  one  fine  city  ? 

London  and  Paris  stand  out  in  bold  contrast,  the  one 
for  utility,  the  other  for  beauty.  Both  are  adepts  in  their 
respective  arts.  The  city  proper  of  London  has  better 
buildings  and  cleaner  streets  than  when  St  Paul  was 
erected ;  otherwise  it  is  much  the  same.  Elsewhere  in  Lon 
don,  however,  are  spacious  parks  and  imposing  palaces, 
with  now  and  then  a  fine  bit  of  somthing  to  look  out  upon, 
as  the  bridges  of  the  murky  Thames,  the  Parliament  houses, 
the  Abbey,  Somerset  house,  and  Piccadilly,  perhaps.  Chil 
dren  may  play  at  the  Zoo,  while  grown-ups  sit  in  hired 
chairs  under  the  trees. 

Three  times  London  was  destroyed  by  the  plague,  and 
five  times  by  fire,  that  of  1666  lasting  four  days,  and  cov 
ering  thrice  the  area  of  the  San  Francisco  conflagration ; 
yet  it  was  rebuilt  better  than  before  in  three  and  a  half 
years.  Always  the  city  is  improved  in  the  -rebuilding; 
how  much,  depends  upon  the  intelligence  and  enterprise 
of  the  people. 

Paris  is  brilliant  with  everything  that  takes  the  eye — 
palaces,  arches,  Bon  Marche  shops,  arcades,  colonnades, 
great  open  spaces  adorned  with  statues,  forest  parks,  ely- 


102  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

sian  driveways,  and  broad  boulevards  cut  through  mediae 
val  quarters  in  every  direction,  as  well  for  air  as  for 
protection  from  the  canaille  blockaded  in  the  narrow 
streets.  San  Francisco  may  have  some  canaille  of  her  own 
to  boast  of  one  of  these  days;  canaille  engendered  from 
the  scum  of  Europe  and  Asia,  and  educated  at  our  expense 
for  our  destruction.  Over  and  over,  these  two  cities,  each 
a  world  metropolis,  have  been  renovated  and  reconstructed, 
the  work  in  fact  going  on  continuously. 

For  some  of  the  most  effective  of  our  urban  elabora 
tions  we  must  go  back  to  the  first  of  city  builders  of  whom 
we  have  knowledge.  The  Assyrians  made  terraces,  nature 
teaching  them.  On  the  level  plain  building  ground  was 
raised  forty  feet  for  effect.  Like  all  artists  of  precivili- 
zation,  the  Assyrians  placed  adornment  before  convenience, 
as  appeared  in  Nineveh  on  the  Tigris  and  Babylon  on  the 
Euphrates.  At  Thebes  and  Palmyra  it  was  the  same,  their 
palaces  of  alabaster,  if  one  chooses  to  believe  what  is  said, 
covering,  some  of  them,  a  hundred  acres.  The  fashion 
now  is  to  build  upward  rather  than  outward.  Besides  this 
alabaster  acreage  there  are  to  be  taken  into  account  the 
pyramids,  artificial  mountains,  and  endless  tower-towns, 
supposed  to  be  an  improvement  on  whatever  existed  before 
their  time.  Around  the  Mediterranean  and  over  India 
way  were  once  hundreds  of  charming  palaces  like  the  Me- 
gara  suburb  of  Carthage  and  the  amphitheatre  of  Rhodes, 
prolific  in  classic  art  and  architecture,  precious  gifts  of 
the  gods. 

But  before  all  other  gods  or  gifts  comes  Athens,  where 
the  men  were  as  gods  and  the  gods  very  like  the  men. 
Encircling  the  Acropolis  hill — most  ancient  cities  had  their 
central  hill — the  city  owes  its  grandeur  to  the  many  tem 
ples  dedicated  to  the  Olympian  deities  by  the  men  who 
made  them,  made  both  deities  and  temples,  that  long  line 
of  philosophers  the  sublimity  of  whose  thoughts  civiliza 
tion  fed  on  and  found  expression  in  the  genius  of  now 
and  then  a  Pericles  or  a  Phidias. 


THE    STILL    SMALL   VOICE  103 

Twenty  times  Rome  suffered,  each  time  worse  than  ever 
befell  an  American  city,  the  debris  of  destruction  over 
spreading  her  sacred  soil  some  fathoms  deep,  yet  all  the 
while  mistress  of  the  world. 

The  Moors  in  Spain  reconstructed  and  embellished 
many  cities,  and  built  many  entire.  To  them  Spain  owes 
her  finest  specimens  of  art  and  architecture,  as  Seville, 
Cordova,  and  the  Alhambra.  In  Naples  the  mediaeval  still 
overshadows  the  modern.  The  city  needs  cleansing,  though 
she  flourishes  in  her  filth  and  volcanic  belchings.  Nice, 
like  Paris,  plans  to  please  her  guests.  Berlin  was  a  little 
late  with  her  reconstructive  work;  the  town  walls  were 
not  removed  till  1866.  Though  dating  from  1190,  Glasgow 
is  practically  modern,  having  been  several  times  renovated 
by  fire.  Antwerp,  burned  in  1871,  was  quickly  rebuilt. 
The  Hague  is  charming  as  the  city  of  peace.  Munich,  on 
the  Isar,  is  every  day  drifting  into  the  beautiful,  not  to 
say  aesthetical. 

Pekin  is  a  city  sui  generis,  with  its  Kin-Ching,  or  pro 
hibited  city,  sacred  to  royalty;  its  Hwang-Ching,  or  impe 
rial  city,  exclusively  for  court  officials;  its  Tartar  division 
and  Chinese  division,  all  completed  according  to  the  grand 
khan  and  Confucius.  Happy  Celestials !  There  is  nothing 
more  to  be  done,  nothing  to  reconstruct,  nothing  to  im 
prove;  it  stands  alone,  the  only  city  in  all  the  world  that 
is  absolutely  finished  and  perfect.  But  of  a  truth  our 
public  works  sink  into  insignificance  beside  those  of  the 
ancient  barbarians,  the  great  wall  and  canal  of  China,  the 
pyramids  of  Egypt,  and  the  brilliant  cities  of  Assyria  and 
Palmyra. 

The  cities  of  Australia — Melbourne,  Sydney,  Adelaide 
— in  common  with  all  those  of  the  British  colonies,  are  laid 
out  along  liberal  lines,  with  broad  streets,  parks,  public 
squares,  and  beautiful  modern  buildings,  requiring  little 
change  for  many  years  to  come.  The  English  part  of 
Calcutta  is  a  city  of  palaces,  built  from  the  spoils  of  sub- 


104  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

jugation.  Yokohama  was  a  small  fishing  station  when 
Commodore  Perry  called  there  in  1854. 

In  the  New  World  as  in  the  Old,  from  John  Cotton 
to  Joseph  Smith,  religion  with  cupidity  inspires.  One 
William  Blaxton  in  1630  lived  where  Boston  now  is,  and 
invited  thither  Winthrop  and  his  colonists.  When  ban 
ished  from  Massachusetts,  Roger  Williams  stepped  ashore 
on  the  bank  of  the  Seekonk,  on  a  rock  where  is  now  Provi 
dence.  The  French  built  a  fort  where  Marquette  camped 
in  1673,  and  there  is  now  Chicago.  Buffalo  was  a  military 
post  in  1812.  St  Paul  was  an  Indian  trading  station  prior 
to  1838.  The  building  of  Fort  Washington  was  followed 
by  settlers  and  Cincinnati  was  begun.  Henry  Hudson 
touched  at  Manhattan  island  in  1609,  and  the  Dutch  fol 
lowing,  New  York  was  the  result.  Brigham  Young,  jour 
neying  westward,  came  to  the  Great  Salt  Lake,  where,  as 
he  told  his  followers,  he  was  instructed  by  divine  revela 
tion  to  plant  the  City  of  the  Saints.  It  proved  more  per 
manent  than  might  have  been  expected,  as  zion-cities  usu 
ally  are  quite  ephemeral  affairs. 

Boston,  the  beneficial,  swept  by  fires,  smallpox,  witch 
craft,  quakerism,  snowstorms,  earthquakes,  and  proslavery 
riots,  still  lives  to  meditate  upon  her  own  superiority  and 
to  instruct  mankind.  Much  attention  has  been  given  of 
late  in  Boston  and  suburban  towns  to  artistic  effect  in 
street  architecture.  Until  recently  New  York  has  given 
but  little  thought  to  pleasing  effects.  Broadway  was  not 
broad,  and  Fifth  Avenue  was  not  striking.  Of  late,  how 
ever,  the  city  has  become  imperial,  houses,  parks  and  drive 
ways  being  among  the  finest  in  the  world.  New  Orleans 
has  survived  at  least  a  dozen  great  yellow-fever  crises  since 
1812,  population  meanwhile  increasing  twentyfold.  After 
the  enforced  construction  of  the  levee,  the  idea  came  to  some 
one  that  the  top  of  it  would  make  a  fine,  driveway,  which 
in  due  time  was  extended  from  the  river  and  bayous  to 
the  lake,  thus  becoming  the  most  attractive  feature  of 
the  place.  Though  not  without  natural  attractions,  Chi- 


THE    STILL    SMALL   VOICE  105 

cago  was  not  made  by  or  for  her  things  of  beauty.  Be 
ginning  with  low  wooden  houses  along  dirty  streets,  trans 
formations  were  continued  until  systems  of  parks  and 
boulevards  with  elegant  edifices  came  into  view, — which 
shows  that,  however  material  the  beginning  of  American 
towns  may  be,  if  prosperity  comes  the  sesthetical  is  sure 
to  come  with  it.  A  contrast  to  Chicago  may  be  found  in 
St  Louis,  for  a  long  time  trading-post  town  and  city, 
which  would  be  of  more  importance  now  were  her  people 
of  a  different  quality.  Even  her  chronic  calamities,  tor 
nadoes,  floods,  and  epidemics,  fail  to  rouse  her  energies, 
so  that  Chicago,  starting  later  and  under  more  adverse 
circumstances,  outstripped  her  in  every  particular.  Cleve 
land  was  laid  out  for  a  fine  city,  so  that  as  she  grew  little 
alteration  was  found  necessary.  The  streets  are  wide,  80 
to  120  feet — Superior  Street  132  feet — and  so  abundant 
is  the  foliage,  largely  maple,  that  it  is  called  the  Forest 
city. 

As  an  instance  of  modern  aesthetic  town  construction 
one  might  cite  Denver,  a  western  Yankee  metropolis  of 
ultrarefined  men  and  women  from  down  Boston  way, 
breathing  a  nomenclature  never  so  freely  used  before  among 
mid-continent  mountains,  streets,  schoolhouses,  parks,  arid 
gardens — all  alive  with  the  names  of  New  England  poets, 
philosophers,  and  statesmen.  Scracely  yet  turned  the  half 
century  in  age,  few  such  charming  cities  as  Denver  have 
been  made  with  fewer  mistakes. 

San  Francisco  at  her  birth  and  christening  had  for 
godfather  neither  prince  nor  priest,  nor  any  cultured  co 
terie.  The  sandy  peninsula,  on  whose  inner  edge,  at  the 
cove  called  Yerba  Buena,  stood  some  hide  and  tallow  stores 
and  fur  depots  which  drew  to  them  the  stragglers  that 
passed  that  way,  was  about  as  ill-omened  a  spot  as  the  one 
designated  by  the  snake-devouring  eagle  perched  upon 
an  island  cactus  as  the  place  where  the  wandering  Aztecs 
should  rest  and  build  their  city  of  Mexico.  San  Fran- 


106  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

Cisco's  godparents  were  but  common  humanity,  traders 
and  adventurers,  later  gold-seekers  and  pot  politicians,  in 
telligent,  bold,  and  for  the  most  part  honest ;  few  intending 
long"  to  remain,  few  dreaming  of  the  great  city  to  arise 
here;  few  caring  how  the  town  should  be  made,  if  one 
were  made  at  all.  When  was  improvised  an  alcalde  after 
the  Mexican  fashion,  and  two  boards  of  aldermen  were 
established  after  the  New  York  fashion,  and  the  high  offi 
cials  saw  that  they  could  now  and  then  pick  up  a  twenty- 
five-dollar  fee  for  deeding  a  fifty  vara  lot,  if  so  be  they  had 
on  hand  some  fifty  varas,  they  forthwith  went  to  work 
to  make  them  by  drawing  lines  in  front  of  the  cove  and 
intersecting  them  at  right  angles  by  lines  running  up  over 
the  hills,  giving  their  own  names,  with  a  sprinkling  of 
the  names  of  bear-flag  heroes,  not  forgetting  the  usual 
Washington  and  Jackson,  leaving  in  the  centre  a  plaza, 
the  cove  in  front  to  be  filled  in  later.  The  streets  were 
narrow,  dusty  in  summer  and  miry  in  winter.  Spanish- 
American  streets  are  usually  thirty-six  feet  wide.  Wind 
ing  trails  led  from  the  Presidio  to  the  Mission,  and  from 
Mission  and  Presidio  to  the  cove.  This  was  the  beginning 
of  San  Francisco,  which  a  merciful  providence  has  five 
times  burned,  the  original  shacks  and  their  successors,  the 
last  time  thoroughly,  giving  the  inhabitants  the  opportu 
nity  to  build  something  better. 

All  this  time  the  matchless  bay  and  inviting  shores 
awaited  the  coming  of  those  who  should  aid  in  the  accom 
plishment  of  their  high  destiny.  Situated  on  the  Pacific 
relatively  as  is  New  York  on  the  Atlantic,  the  natural  gate 
way  with  its  unique  portal  between  the  old  east  and  the 
new  west,  the  only  outlet  for  the  drainage  of  thousands 
of  square  miles  of  garden  lands  and  grain  fields,  a  harbor 
in  the  world's  centre  of  highest  development,  with  no  other 
to  speak  of  within  five  hundred  miles  on  either  side ;  domi- 
nator  of  the  greatest  of  oceans,  waters  more  spacious  than 
those  of  Rio,  airs  of  purple  haze  sweeter  than  those  of 
Italy,  hills,  islands  and  shore  lines  more  sublime  than  any 


THE    STILL    SMALL   VOICE  107 

of  Greece — all  this  time  these  benefactions  of  nature  have 
awaited  the  appreciation  and  action  of  those  who  for  their 
own  benefit  and  the  benefit  of  the  nation  would  utilize 
them.  Are  they  here  now,  these  new  city-builders,  or  must 
San  Francisco  wait  for  another  generation? 

They  must  be  men  of  broad  minds,  for  this  is  no  ordi 
nary  problem  to  be  worked  out.  It  is  certain  that  in  the 
near  or  distant  future  there  will  be  here  a  very  large  and 
very  wealthy  city,  probably  the  largest  and  wealthiest  in 
the  world.  The  whole  of  the  peninsula  will  be  covered, 
and  as  much  more  space  beyond  it,  and  around  the  bay 
shores  to  and  beyond  Carquinez  strait.  Viewed  in  the  light 
of  history  and  progressional  phenomena,  this  is  the  only 
rational  conclusion. 

Always  the  march  of  intellectual  development  has  been 
from  east  to  west,  the  old  east  dying  as  the  new  west  bursts 
into  being,  until  now  the  west  is  east,  and  the  final  issue 
must  here  be  met.  In  the  advent  and  progress  of  civili 
zation  there  was  first  the  Mediterranean,  then  the  Atlantic, 
and  then  the  Pacific,  the  last  the  greatest  of  all.  What 
else  is  possible?  Where  else  on  this  planet  is  man  to  go 
for  his  ultimate  achievement  ? 

Conviction  comes  slowly  in  such  cases,  and  properly  so. 
Yet  in  forecasting  the  future  from  the  light  of  the  past 
cavilers  can  scarcely  go  farther  afield  than  our  worship 
ful  forbears,  who  less  than  a  century  ago,  on  the  floor  of 
the  United  States  congress,  decried  as  absurd  settlement 
beyond  the  Missouri,  ridiculed  buying  half  a  continent  of 
worthless  Northwest  wilderness,  thanked  God  for  the 
Rocky  mountain  barrier  to  man's  presumption,  scouted  at 
a  possible  wagon  road,  not  to  say  railway,  across  the  con 
tinent,  lamented  the  unprofitable  theft  of  California,  and 
cursed  the  Alaska  purchase  as  money  worse  than  thrown 
away.  In  view  of  what  has  been  and  is,  can  anyone  call 
it  a  Utopian  dream  to  picture  the  Pacific  bordered  by  an 
advanced  civilization  with  cities  more  brilliant  than  any 


108  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

of  the  ancient  East,  more  opulent  than  any  of  the  cultured 
West? 

Kio  de  Janeiro!  what  have  the  Brazilians  been  doing 
these  last  decades?  Decapitating  politically  dear  Dom  Pe 
dro,  true  patriot,  though  emperor — he  came  to  me  once  in 
my  library,  pouring  out  his  soul  for  his  beloved  Brazil— 
they  abolished  slavery,  formed  a  republic,  and  modernized 
the  city.  They  made  boulevards  and  water  drives,  the 
finest  in  the  world.  They  cut  through  the  heart  of  the 
old  town  a  new  Avenida  Central,  over  a  mile  in  length 
and  one  hundred  and  ten  feet  wide,  lining  it  on  either  side 
with  palatial  business  houses  and  costly  residences,  paving 
the  thoroughfare  with  asphalt  and  adorning  it  with  artistic 
fixtures  for  illumination,  the  street  work  being  completed 
in  eighteen  months.  Strangling  in  their  incipiency  graft 
and  greed,  after  kindty  dismissing  Dom  Pedro  with  well- 
filled  pockets  for  home,  these  Portuguese  brought  out  their 
money  and  spent  hundreds  of  millions  in  improving  their 
city,  with  hundreds  of  millions  left  which  they  have  yet 
to  spend.  Thus  did  these  of  the  Latin  race,  whom  we  re 
gard  as  less  Bostonian  than  ourselves. 

With  this  brief  glance  at  other  cities  of  present  and 
other  times,  and  having  in  view  the  part  played  by  envi 
ronment  in  the  trend  of  refining  influences,  and  remember 
ing  further,  following  the  spirit  of  the  times,  that  nothing 
within  the  scope  of  human  power  to  accomplish  is  too  vast, 
or  too  valuable,  or  too  advanced  for  the  purpose,  it  re 
mained  with  the  people  of  San  Francisco  to  determine 
what  they  would  do. 

It  was  not  necessary  to  speak  of  the  city's  present  or 
future  requirements,  as  sea  water  on  the  hills,  and  fresh 
water  with  electric  power  from  the  Sierra ;  sea  wall,  docks, 
and  water-way  drives ;  widened  streets  and  winding  boule 
vards;  embellished  hillsides  and  hilltops;  bay  tunnels  and 
union  railway  station ;  bay  and  ocean  boating  and  bathing ; 
arches  and  arcades;  park  strips  or  boulevards  cutting 
through  slums,  and  the  nests  of  filthy  foreigners,  bordered 


THE    STILL    SMALL   VOICE  109 

on  either  side  by  structures  characteristic  of  their  country 
— all  this  and  more  would  come  to  those  who  might  have  the 
matter  in  charge.  The  pressing  need  then  was  a  general 
plan  for  all  to  work  to ;  this,  and  taking  the  reconstruction 
of  the  city  out  of  politics  and  placing  it  in  the  hands  of  re 
sponsible  business  men. 

If  the  people  and  government  of  the  United  States 
would  consider  for  a  moment  the  importance  to  the  nation 
of  a  well-fortified  and  imposing  city  and  seaport  at  San 
Francisco  bay;  the  importance  to  the  army  and  navy,  to 
art  and  science,  to  commerce  and  manufactures;  of  the 
effect  of  a  city  with  its  broad  surroundings,  at  once  ele 
gant  and  impressive,  upon  the  nations  round  the  Pacific 
and  on  all  the  world,  there  should  be  little  trouble  in  its 
accomplishment. 

And  be  it  remembered  that  whatever  San  Francisco, 
her  citizens  and  her  lovers,  do  now  or  neglect  to  do  in 
this  present  regeneration  will  be  felt  for  good  or  ill  to 
remotest  ages.  Let  us  build  and  rebuild  accordingly,  bear 
ing  in  mind  that  the  new  San  Francisco  is  to  stand  forever 
before  the  world  as  the  measure  of  the  civic  taste  and  intel 
ligence  of  her  people.  Such  was  the  spirit  of  the  time. 

The  question  has  been  oftener  asked  than  answered, 
why  Chicago  should  have  grown  in  wealth  and  population 
so  much  faster  than  St  Louis,  or  New  Orleans,  or  San 
Francisco.  It  is  not  enough  to  point  to  her  position  on 
the  lakes,  the  wide  extent  of  contributory  industries,  and 
the  convergence  of  railways;  other  cities  have  at  their 
command  as  great  natural  advantages  with  like  limitless 
opportunity.  As  to  location,  city  sites  are  seldom  chosen 
by  convention,  or  the  fittest  spots  favored.  Chicagoans 
assert  that  a  worse  place  than  theirs  for  a  city  cannot  be 
found  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Michigan.  New  York  would 
be  better  up  the  Hudson,  London  in  Bristol  channel,  and 
San  Francisco  at  Carquinez  strait.  Indeed,  it  was  by  a 


110  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

Yankee  trick  that  the  sand-blown  peninsula  secured  the 
principal  city  of  the  Pacific. 

It  happened  this  way.  General  Vallejo,  Mexican  com- 
andante  residing  at  Sonoma,  upon  the  arrival  of  the  new 
American  authorities  said  to  them:  "Let  it  bear  the  name 
of  my  wife,  Francesca,  and  let  it  be  the  commercial  and 
political  metropolis  of  your  Pacific  possessions,  and  I  will 
give  you  the  finest  site  in  the  world  for  a  city,  with  state  - 
house  and  residences  built  and  ready  for  your  free  occu 
pation.  ' '  And  so  it  was  agreed,  and  the  general  made  ready 
for  the  coming  of  the  legislature. 

Meanwhile,  to  the  American  alcalde,  who  had  estab 
lished  his  rule  at  Yerba  Buena,  a  trading  hamlet  in  the 
cove  opposite  the  island  of  that  name  and  the  nucleus  of 
the  present  San  Francisco,  came  Folsom,  United  States 
army  captain  and  quartermaster,  to  whom  had  been  given 
certain  lots  of  land  in  Yerba  Buena,  and  said:  "Why  not 
call  the  town  San  Francisco,  and  bring  hither  ships  which 
clear  from  various  ports  for  San  Francisco  bay?"  And 
so  it  was  done;  the  fine  plans  of  the  Mexican  general  fell 
to  the  ground,  and  the  name  Benicia  was  given  to  what 
had  been  Francesca.  A  year  or  two  later,  with  five  hun 
dred  ships  of  the  gold-seekers  anchored  off  the  cove,  not 
all  the  men  and  money  in  the  country  could  have  moved 
the  town  from  its  ill-chosen  location. 

Opportunity  is  much  the  same  in  various  times  and 
places,  whether  fortuitous  or  forced.  More  men  make 
opportunity  than  are  made  by  it,  particularly  among  those 
who  achieve  great  success.  Land  being  unavailable,  Ven 
ice  the  beautiful  was  built  upon  the  water,  while  the  Hol 
landers  manage  to  live  along  the  centuries  below  sea  level. 

The  builders  of  Chicago  possessed  varied  abilities  of  a 
high  order,  not  least  among  which  was  the  faculty  of 
working  together.  They  realized  at  an  early  date  that  the 
citizens  and  the  city  are  one;  whatever  of  advantage  they 
might  secure  to  their  city  would  be  returned  to  them  by 
their  city  fourfold. 


THE    STILL    SMALL    VOICE  111 

' '  Oh,  I  do  love  this  old  town ! ' '  one  of  them  was  heard 
to  exclaim  as,  returning  from  the  station,  his  cab  paddled 
through  the  slushy  streets  under  a  slushy  sky.  He  was 
quite  a  young  man,  yet  he  had  made  a  large  fortune  there. 
"It's  no  credit  to  us  making  money  here,"  he  added,  "we 
couldn't  help  it."  So  citizenized,  what  should  we  expect 
if  not  unity  of  effort,  a  willingness  to  efface  self  when 
necessary,  and  with  intense  individualism  to  subordinate 
individual  ideas  and  feelings  to  the  public  good?  In  such 
an  atmosphere  rises  quickly  a  new  city  from  the  ashes  of 
the  old,  or  a  fairy  creation  like  the  Columbian  Exposition. 
Imagine  the  peninsula  of  San  Francisco  covered  by  a  real 
city  equal  in  beauty  and  grandeur  to  the  Chicago  jsham 
city  of  1893. 

The  typical  West- American  city  builder  has  money- 
created,  not  inherited,  wealth.  But  possession  merely  is 
not  enough;  he  gives.  Yet  possessing  and  giving  are  not 
enough ;  he  works,  constantly  and  intelligently.  The  power 
which  wealth  gives  is  often  employed  in  retarding  progress 
when  the  interests  of  the  individual  seem  to  clash  with 
those  of  the  commonwealth;  it  is  always  lessened  by  the 
absence  of  respect  for  its  possessor.  But  when  wealth, 
intelligence,  honesty,  and  enthusiasm  join  hands  with  pa 
triotism  there  must  be  progress. 

Time  and  place  do  not  account  for  all  of  Chicago's 
phenomenal  growth,  nor  do  the  distances  from  the  world's 
centres  of  population  and  industry,  the  comparative  iso 
lation,  and  the  evil* effects  of  railway  domination  account 
wholly  for  San  Francisco's  slow  growth  toward  the  end 
of  the  century.  For,  following  the  several  spasms  of  de 
velopment  incident  to  the  ages  of  gold,  of  grain,  and  of 
fruit,  and  of  the  advent  of  the  railway  incubus,  California 
for  a  time  betook  herself  to  rest,  which  indeed  was  largely 
paralysis.  Then,  too,  those  who  had  come  first  and  cleared 
the  ground,  laying  the  foundations  of  fortunes,  were  pass 
ing  away,  and  their  sucessors  seemed  more  ready  to  enjoy 
than  to  create.  But  with  the  opening  of  a  new  century 


112  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

California  awoke  and  made  such  progress  as  was  never 
made  before. 

Coining  to  the  late  catastrophe,  it  was  well  that  too 
much  dependence  was  not  placed  on  promises  regarding 
rehabilitation  made  during  the  first  flush  of  sympathy; 
the  words  were  nevertheless  pleasant  to  the  ear  at  the  time. 
The  insurance  companies  would  act  promptly  and  liber 
ally,  taking  no  advantage  of  any  technicality ;  congress 
would  remit  duties  on  building  material  for  a  time,  and 
thus  protect  the  city-builders  from  the  extortions  of  the 
material  men;  the  material  men  roundly  asserted  that 
there  should  be  no  extortion,  no  advance  in  prices,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  all  other  work  should  be  set  aside  and 
precedence  given  to  San  Francisco  orders ;  eastern  capital- 
cooperate  ists  were  to  with  the  government  in  placing  at  the 
portal  of  the  Pacific  a  city  which  should  be  a  credit  to  the 
nation  and  a  power  in  the  exploitation  of  the  great  ocean. 
None  of  these  things  came  to  pass.  Indeed  it  was  too 
much  to  expect  of  poor  human  nature  until  selfishness  and 
greed  are  yet  further  eliminated.  Never  to  be  forgotten  was 
the  superb  benevolence  which  so  promptly  and  so  liberally 
showered  comforts  upon  the  poor,  the  sick,  the  hungry, 
and  the  houseless  until  it  was  feared  that  the  people  might 
become  pauperized.  But  that  was  charity,  whereas  busi 
ness  is  business. 

The  insurance  companies,  themselves  stricken  nigh  unto 
death,  paused  in  the  generous  impulse  to  pay  quickly  and 
in  full  and  let  the  new  steel  city  arise  at  once  in  all  its 
glory.  They  began  to  consider,  then  to  temporize,  and 
finally,  with  notable  exceptions,  to  evade  by  every  means 
in  their  power  the  payment  of  their  obligations.  The  loss 
and  the  annoyance  thus  inflicted  upon  the  insured  were 
increased  by  the  uncertainty  as  to  what  they  should  finally 
be  able  to  do.  Congress  likewise  paused  to  consider  the 
effect  the  proposed  remission  of  duties  would  have  on  cer 
tain  members  and  their  lumber  and  steel  friends.  Thus 


THE    STILL    SMALL   VOICE  113 

a  hundred  days  passed  by,  and  with  some  relief  half  a 
hundred  more. 

Outside  capital  was  still  ready,  but  San  Franciscans 
seemed  to  have  sufficient  for  present  needs.  Capital  is  con 
servative  and  Californians  independent.  Even  from  the 
government  they  never  asked  much,  though  well  aware 
that  since  the  gold  discovery  California  has  given  a  hun 
dredfold  more  than  she  has  received.  Her  people  were 
accustomed  to  take  care  of  themselves,  and  managed  on 
the  whole  to  get  along.  A  general  conflagration  was  not 
a  new  thing.  Six  times  during  the  gold-digging  days  San 
Francisco  was  destroyed  by  fire,  and  each  time  new  houses 
were  going  up  before  the  ashes  were  cold.  True,  there 
was  not  so  much  to  burn  in  those  days ;  but  it  was  all  the 
people  had;  there  was  not  so  much  to  rebuild,  and  there 
were  no  insurance  companies  to  keep  them  back.  San 
Francisco  would  be  grateful,  and  it  would  be  a  graceful 
thing  for  the  government  to  do,  to  keep  away  the  sharks 
until  the  people  should  get  their  heads  above  water  again, 
not  as  charity,  but  for  the  general  good.  The  exaction  of 
duties  on  lumber  from  British  Columbia  was  simply  taking 
money  from  the  San  Francisco  builders  and  thrusting  it 
into  the  plethoric  pockets  of  the  Puget  Sound  people,  who 
at  once  advanced  their  prices  so  as  seriously  to  retard 
building  and  render  it  in  many  cases  impossible.  Later 
was  another  advance  in  the  price  of  lumber,  owing  to  the 
apathy  at  Washington  and  elsewhere,  after  twice  before 
raising  the  price  to  the  highest  limit. 

Meanwhile,  in  and  around  the  burned  district,  traffic 
never  ceased.  The  inflow  of  merchandise  from  all  parts 
continued.  Upon  the  ashes  of  their  former  stores,  and 
scattered  about  the  suburbs,  business  men  established  them 
selves  wherever  they  could  find  a  house  to  rent  or  a  lot 
to  build  upon.  Shacks  were  set  up  in  every  quarter,  and 
better  structures  of  one  or  two  stories  were  permitted, 
subject  to  removal  by  order  of  the  city  at  any  time  they 
should  appear  to  stand  in  the  way  of  permanent  improve- 


114  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

merit.  Some  business  houses  were  extinguished,  but  other 
and  larger  ones  arose  in  their  stead.  Rebuilding  was  slow 
because  of  the  debris  to  be  removed  and  the  more  substan 
tial  character  of  the  permanent  structures  to  be  erected. 

Around  the  bay  continued  the  hum  of  industry.  The 
country  teemed  with  prosperity.  Never  were  the  services 
of  the  city  needed  so  much  as  now.  There  were  no  finan 
cial  disturbances;  money  was  easy,  but  more  would  be 
required  soon ;  claims  were  not  pressed  in  the  courts.  Any 
San  Francisco  bonds  thrown  upon  the  market  were  quickly 
taken  by  local  capitalists.  Customs  receipts  were  larger 
than  ever  before,  and  there  was  no  shrinkage  at  the  clear 
ing  house.  Land  values  remain  much  the  same;  in  some 
quarters  land  depreciated,  in  other  places  it  increased  in 
price ;  buyers  stood  ready  to  take  advantage  of  forced  sales. 

Labor  was  scarce  in  both  city  and  country ;  wages  were 
high  and  advancing.  Five  times  the  number  of  mechanics 
present  could  find  profitable  employment  in  the  city,  and 
it  would  be  so  for  years  to  come,  as  there  was  much  to  be 
done.  With  the  advance  of  the  labor  wage  and  of  lumber, 
rents  advanced.  Mills  and  factories  were  running  at  their 
full  capacity.  Orchards  and  grain  fields  were  overflowing, 
and  harvesters  were  found  with  difficulty.  Merchants' 
sales  were  never  so  large  nor  profits  so  good.  Prices  of 
everything  ruled  high,  with  an  upward  tendency,  the  de 
mand  at  the  shops  being  for  articles  of  good  quality.  Ori 
ental  rugs  and  diamonds  were  conspicuously  in  evidence. 
Insurers  were  paying  their  losses  to  some  extent,  and  many 
people  found  themselves  in  possession  of  more  ready  money 
than  they  ever  had  before.  They  were  rich,  though  they 
may  have  had  no  house  to  sleep  in.  It  was  a  momentary 
return  to  the  flush  times  of  the  early  fifties,  though  upon 
a  broader  and  more  civilized  scale,  and  without  their  un 
certainty  or  their  romance. 

In  view  of  the  facts  it  seemed  superfluous  to  discuss 
questions  regarding  the  future  of  San  Francisco.  That  is, 


THE    STILL    SMALL   VOICE  115 

to  say,  such  questions  as  were  propounded  by  chronic 
croakers :  Will  the  city  be  rebuilt  ?  If  so,  will  it  be  a  city 
of  fine  buildings?  Will  not  the  fear  of  earthquakes  drive 
away  capital  and  confine  reconstruction  to  insignificance? 

We  hastened  to  assure  our  friends  that  the  day 
of  doom  had  not  yet  come  to  this  city;  that  the  day 
of  doom  never  comes  to  any  city  for  so  slight  a  cause,  or 
for  any  cause  short  of  a  rain  of  brimstone  and  fire,  as  in 
the  case  of  Sodom.  Whether  of  imperial  steel  or  of  impe 
rial  shacks;  whether  calamities  come  in  the  form  of  such 
temblores  as  are  here  met  occasionally  in  a  mild  form,  or 
in  the  far  more  destructive  form  of  hurricanes,  floods,  pes 
tilence,  sun-striking,  and  lightning,  so  common  at  the  east 
and  elsewhere,  and  from  which  San  Francisco  is  wholly 
free,  there  will  here  forever  be  a  city,  a  large,  powerful, 
and  wealthy  city. 

Every  part  of  the  earth  is  subject  at  any  time  to  seis 
mic  disturbance,  and  no  one  can  truthfully  say  that  Cali 
fornia  is  more  liable  to  another  such  occurrence  than  any 
other  part  of  the  United  States.  Indeed,  it  should  be  less 
so,  the  earth's  curst  here  having  settled  itself,  let  us  hope, 
to  some  centuries  of  repose.  Never  before  has  anything 
like  this  been  known  on  our  Pacific  seaboard.  Never  before, 
so  far  as  history  or  tradition  or  the  physical  features  of 
the  country  can  show,  has  California  experienced  a  serious 
earthquake  shock — that  is  to  say,  one  attended  by  any 
considerable  loss  of  life  or  property.  Nor  was  the  earth 
quake  of  April  so  terrible  as  it  might  seem  to  some.  Apart 
from  the  fire  there  was  not  so  very  much  of  it,  and  no  great 
damage  was  done  by  it.  The  official  figures  were :  266 
killed  by  falling  walls,  177  by  fire,  7  shot,  and  2  deaths 
by  ptomaine  poisoning — 452  in  all.  The  property  damage 
by  the  earthquake  was  scarcely  worth  speaking  of,  being 
no  more  than  happens  elsewhere  in  the  world  from  other 
causes  nearly  every  day ;  it  would  have  been  quickly  made 
good  and  little  thought  of  it  but  for  the  conflagration  that 
followed. 


116  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

Compare  San  Francisco  casualities  with  those  of  other 
cities.  Two  hundred  and  sixty  deaths  as  the  result  of  the 
greatest  calamity  that  ever  happened  to  California!  Not 
to  mention  the  floods,  fires,  and  cyclones  common  to  St 
Louis,  Chicago,  Galveston,  and  all  mid-continent  America, 
the  yellow  fever  at  New  Orleans  and  along  the  southern 
shore,  or  the  25,000  deaths  from  cholera  in  New  York  and 
Philadelphia  in  less  than  twenty-five  years,  or  the  loss 
of  1,000  ships  on  the  Atlantic  coast  in  the  hurricane  of 
August,  187-3 — not  to  mention  the  many  extraordinary  dis 
plays  of  vindictive  nature,  take  some  of  the  more  common 
place  calamities  incident  to  most  cities  except  those  along 
the  Pacific  coast. 

Every  year  more  people  and  more  property  are  de 
stroyed  by  lightning,  floods,  and  wind-storms  on  the  At 
lantic  side  of  the  Rocky  mountains  than  are  affected  by 
earthquakes  on  the  Pacific  side  in  a  hundred  years.  Ever}' 
year  more  people  drop  dead  from  sunstrokes  in  New  York. 
Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  and  other  eastern  cities  than  are 
killed  by  earthquakes  in  San  Francisco  in  a  thousand  years, 
so  far  as  we  may  know.  Yet  men  and  women  continue 
to  live  and  build  houses  in  those  cities  without  thought  of 
running  away. 

Nor  can  California  claim  the  whole  even  of  United 
States  earthquakes.  In  1755  all  New  England  was  shaken 
up,  and  Boston  housetops  and  walls  were  set  dancing,  the 
horror  coming  in  ''with  a  roaring  noise,  like  that  of  thun 
der,"  as  the  record  has  it,  "and  then  a  swell  like  the 
roaring  sea";  and  yet,  and  notwithstanding  the  great  fire 
later,  the  city  still  shows  vitally,  the  people  are  not  afraid, 
and  property  is  valuable.  And  so  in  regard  to  New  York 
and  London  and  all  cities.  In  Missouri,  in  1811,  the  earth 
shook  almost  continuously  for  several  months  along  a 
stretch  of  three  hundred  miles,  throwing  up  prairies  into 
sand  hills  and  submerging  forests.  Chicago  and  New  York, 
and  all  the  country  between,  were  visited  by  earthquakes 
in  1870.  Then  there  are  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  Ala- 


THE    STILL    SMALL   VOICE  117 

bama,  Texas  and  Colorado — -there  is  not  a  state  in  the 
union  that  has  not  had  a  touch  of  well-authenticated  earth 
quakings  at  some  time  in  its  history. 

To  one  who  knows  the  people  and  the  country,  the 
people  with  their  magnificent  energy  and  ability,  their 
indomitable  will  and  their  splendid  courage;  the  country 
with  its  boundless  natural  wealth  and  illimitable  poten 
tialities;  the  city,  key  to  the  Golden  Gate,  which  opens  the 
east  to  the  west  and  west  to  the  east ;  the  bay,  the  mistress 
primeval,  through  which  flows  the  drainage  of  six  hun 
dred  miles  in  length  of  interior  valley,  the  garden  of  the 
world;  to  one  who  has  here  lived  and  loved,  assisting  in 
this  grand  upbuilding,  thoughts  of  relinquishment,  of  les 
ser  possibilities,  of  meaner  efforts,  do  not  arise. 

What  would  you?  If  there  is  a  spot  on  earth  where 
life  and  property  are  safer,  where  men  are  more  enter 
prising  and  women  more  intelligent  and  refined,  where 
business  is  better  or  fortunes  more  safely  or  surely  made, 
the  world  should  know  of  it.  The  earth  may  tremble  now 
and  then,  but  houses  may  be  built  which  cannot  be  de- 
troyed;  fires  are  liable  to  occur  wherever  material  exists 
that  will  burn,  but  fires  may  be  controlled. 

As.  for  the  city,  its  life  and  destiny,  there  is  this  to 
be  said.  The  few  square  miles  of  buildings  burned  were 
not  San  Francisco,  they  were  only  buildings.  Were  every 
house  destroyed  and  every  street  obliterated,  there  would 
still  remain  the  city,  with  its  commerce,  its  manufactures, 
its  civilization,  a  spiritual  city  if  you  like,  yet  with  mate 
rial  values  incapable  of  destruction — an  atmosphere  alive 
with  cheerful  industry;  also  land  values,  commercial  re 
lations,  financial  connections,  skilled  laborers  and  profes 
sional  men,  and  a  hundred  other  like  souls  of  things.  In 
a  thousand  ideas  and  industries,  though  the  ground  is 
but  ashes,  the  spirit  of  progress  still  hovers  over  the  hills 
awaiting  incarnation.  Dependent  on  this  pile  of  ashes,  or 
the  ghosts  thereof,  are  fleets  of  vessels  sailing  every  sea; 


118  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

farms  and  factories  along  shore  and  back  to  and  beyond 
the  Sierra;  merchants  and  mechanics  here  and  elsewhere; 
mines  and  reclamation  systems,  and  financial  relations  the 
world  over. 

The  question  was  not  then  nor  is  now  as  to  the  exist 
ence  or  permanency  of  a  central  city  on  the  shores  of  San 
Francisco  bay.  The  fact  was  established  beyond  perad- 
venture  with  the  building  of  the  bay,  and  nothing  short 
of  universal  cataclysm  can  affect  it.  It  is  rather  to  the 
quality  of  that  city  that  the  consideration  of  the  present 
generation  should  be  directed.  The  shell  has  been  injured, 
but  the  soul  of  the  city  is  immortal;  and  in  the  restora 
tion  it  would  be  strange  if  our  twentieth-century  young 
men  cannot  do  better  in  artistic  city-building  than  the 
sturdy  gold-seekers  and  their  successors  of  half  a  century 
ago. 

If  history  and  human  experiences  teach  anything;  if 
from  the  past  we  may  judge  somewhat  of  the  future,  we 
might,  if  we  chose,  glance  back  at  the  history  of  cities, 
and  note  how,  when  the  Mediterranean  was  the  greatest, 
of  seas,  Carthage  and  Venice  were  the  greatest  of  cities; 
how,  when  the  Atlantic  assumed  sway,  Ghent,  Seville,  and 
London  each  in  turn  came  to  the  front;  or  how,  following 
the  inevitable,  as  civilization  takes  possession  of  the  Pacific, 
the  last,  the  largest  in  its  native  wealth  as  well  as  in  its 
potentialities  the  richest  of  all,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see 
that  the  chief  city,  the  mistress  of  this  great  ocean,  must 
be  mistress  of  the  world. 

But  this  is  not  all.  A  great  city  on  this  great  bay, 
beside  this  greatest  of  oceans,  centrally  situated,  through 
whose  Golden  Gate  pass  the  waters  drained  from  broad 
fertile  valleys,  a  harbor  without  an  equal,  with  some  hun 
dreds  of  miles  of  water  front  ready  for  a  thousand  indus 
tries,  where  ocean  vessels  may  moor  beside  factories  and 
warehouses,  with  a  climate  temperate,  equable,  healthful, 
and  brewed  for  industry;  a  city  here,  ugly  or  beautiful, 


THE    STILL    SMALL   VOICE  119 

fostered  or  oppressed,  given  over  to  the  sharks  of  specu 
lation  or  safeguarded  as  one  of  the  brightest  jewels  of  the 
nation,  is  an  inexorable  necessity;  its  destiny  is  assured; 
and  all  the  powers  of  graft  and  greed  cannot  prevail 
against  it.  It  is  a  military  necessity,  for  here  will  be  sta 
tioned  the  chief  defenses  and  defenders  of  the  nation 's  west 
ern  border.  It  is  an  industrial  necessity,  for  to  this  city 
three  continents  and  a  thousand  islands  look  for  service. 

As  the  Spanish  Avar  first  revealed  to  America  her  great 
ness,  so  the  possible  loss  of  San  Francisco  quickly  demon 
strates  the  necessity  of  her  existence  to  the  nation.  It  is 
an  educational  necessity,  whence  the  dusky  peoples  around 
the  Pacific  may  draw  from  the  higher  civilization  to  the 
regeneration  of  the  world.  In  the  University  of  California, 
standing  opposite  the  Golden  Gate,  with  its  able  and  de 
voted  president  and  professors,  this  work  is  already  well 
established,  the  results  from  which  will  prove  too  vast  and 
far-reaching  for  our  minds  at  present  to  fathom. 

And  in  all  the  other  many  byways  of  progress  the  re 
sults  of  the  last  half -century  of  effort  on  our  sand-dune 
peninsula  are  not  lost.  Earthquakes  cannot  destroy  them ; 
fire  cannot  burn  them.  San  Francisco  grew  from  the 
Yerba  Buena  hamlet  in  sixty  years.  In  a  new  and  untried 
field  city-building  then  was  something  of  an  experiment; 
yet  population  grew  to  half  a  million,  and  wealth  in  pro 
portion;  and  never  was  improvement  so  marked  as  just 
before  the  fire.  With  wealth  and  population  but  little  im 
paired,  and  with  the  ground  cleared  for  new  constructive 
work,  there  would  be  nothing  strange  in  a  city  here  of 
three  or  four  millions  of  people  in  another  sixty  years. 
Actiial  progress  has  scarcely  been  arrested.  We  are  rudely 
hustled  and  awakened  to  higher  and  severer  effort.  No 
house  or  store  or  factory  or  business  will  be  rebuilt  or 
established  except  in  a  larger  and  more  efficient  way,  and 
that  is  progress. 

In  and  around  the  city  were  soon  more  people  than 
were  there  before  the  fire,  and  soon  there  will  be  twice 


120  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

t 

as  many,  for  from  every  quarter  are  coming  mechanics 
and  business  men,  attracted  by  high  wages  and  the  mate 
rial  requirements  of  the  city.  Hundreds  of  millions  of 
money  from  the  insurance  companies  and  from  local  and 
outside  capitalists  found  safe  and  profitable  investment. 
And  this  was  only  the  beginning. 

San  Francisco  is  already  a  large  manufacturing  city; 
it  will  be  many  times  larger.  Around  its  several  hundred 
miles  of  bay  shore  and  up  the  Carquinez  strait  will  be 
thousands  of  industries -today  not  dreamed  of,  and  all  min 
istering  to  the  necessities  of  the  thousand  cities  of  the 
Pacific. 

Industrially  San  Francisco  should  dominate  the  Pacific, 
its  firm  land  and  islands,  upon  whose  borders  is  to  be  found 
more  natural  wealth,  mineral  and  agricultural,  than  upon 
those  of  all  the  other  waters  of  the  earth  combined,  and 
the  exploitation  of  which  has  scarcely  begun.  Here  in 
abundance  are  every  mineral  and  metal,  rich  and  varied 
soils,  all  fruits  and  native  products,  fuels  and  forests,  for 
some  of  which  we  may  even  thank  earthquakes  and  kin 
dred  volcanic  forces.  Manufactures  compel  commerce,  and 
the  commerce  of  the  Pacific  will  rule  the  world.  The  essen 
tials  of  commerce  are  here.  Intelligence  and  enterprise 
are  here  and  open  to  enlargement. 

For  the  late  severe  loss  the  city  may  find  some  compen 
sations — as  the  cleansing  effect  of  fire ;  much  filth,  material 
and  moral,  has  been  destroyed.  Yet  one  is  forced  to  ob 
serve  that  the  precincts  of  Satan  retain  their  land  values 
equal  to  any  other  locality.  The  greatest  blessing  of  the 
destruction,  however,  is  in  the  saving  from  a  life  of  luxury 
and  idleness  our  best  young  men  and  women,  who  will  in 
consequence  enter  spheres  of  usefulness,  elevating  and  en 
nobling,  thus  exercising  a  beneficial  influence  on  future 
generations.  Already  work  has  become  the  fashion;  snob- 
bism  is  in  disgrace ;  and  some  elements  or  influences  of  the 
simple  life  thus  reestablished  will  remain. 


THE    STILL    SMALL    VOICE  121 

When  all  has  been  said  that  may  be  regarding  the  pres 
ent  and  the  future,  regarding  purposes  and  potentialities, 
the  simple  fact  remains  that  the  city  of  San  Francisco 
will  be  what  people  make  of  it,  neither  more  nor  less.  The 
fruitful  interior  and  the  pine-clad  Sierra ;  the  great  ocean, 
its  islands  and  opulent  shores,  with  their  fifty  thousand 
miles  of  littoral  frontage,  and  every  nation  thereon  await 
ing  a  higher  culture  than  any  which  has  yet  appeared; 
the  Panama  canal,  the  world's  highway,  linking  east  and 
west,  all  these  will  be  everything  or  nothing  to  those  who 
sit  at  the  Golden  Gate,  according  as  they  themselves  shall 
determine.  For  the  glory  of  the  city  is  not  in  its  marble 
palaces  and  structures  of  steel,  though  these  have  their 
value,  but  in  its  citizens,  its  men  and  women,  its  men  of 
ability,  of  unity,  of  energy,  and  public  spirit,  and  its  brave 
and  true  women.  And  has  not  this  city  these?  Surely, 
if  in  the  last  catastrophe  all  that  is  noble,  benevolent,  and 
self-effacing  did  not  appear  in  every  movement  of  our 
people,  then  no  such  qualities  exist  anywhere.  The  man 
ner  in  which  they  rose  to  meet  the  emergency  argues  well 
for  the  city's  future.  Before  the  calamity  was  fairly  upon 
them  they  sprang  to  grapple  it  and  ward  it  off  so  far  as 
possible.  It  was  owing  to  them  and  to  the  military  that 
the  city  was  saved'  froi]|  starvation,  anarchy,  and  disease. 
It  also  speaks  well  for  men  so  severely  stricken  to  be  the 
first  to  send  aid  to  a  similarly  stricken  city,  the  metropolis 
of  Pacific  South  America. 

All  this  leads  us  to  the  highest  hopes  for  the  future. 
What  we  need  most  of  all  is  a  centralization  of  mechanical 
industries  around  the  shores  of  this  bay,  and  delivering 
the  workingman  from  the  thraldom  of  the  laborites  who 
are  driving  away  industries  and  strangling  the  city.  Let 
everything  that  is  made  be  made  here,  and  the  require 
ments  of  all  the  peoples  facing  this  ocean  here  be  met. 
The  Panama  canal  will  be  a  blessing  or  a  curse  to  Cali 
fornia  in  proportion  as  she  rises  to  the  occasion  and  makes 
opportunities. 


122  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

Manufactures  and  commerce  tell  the  whole  story.  Let 
us  have  the  city  beautiful  by  all  means — it  will  pay ;  Paris 
makes  it  pay ;  but  we  must  have  the  useful  in  any  event — 
this,  and  a  municipality  with  its  several  parts  subordinated 
to  a  general  scheme.  What  we  can  do  without  is  dema- 
gogism,  with  its  attendant  labor  wrangles,  and  all  the 
fraud,  lying,  and  hypocrisy  incident  to  a  too  free  govern 
ment.  We  want  a  city  superior  to  any  other  in  beaut}', 
as  well  as  in  utility,  and  it  will  pay  these  United  States 
well  to  see  that  we  have  it.  If  we  build  no  better  than 
before,  we  gain  nothing  by  this  fire  which  has  cost  many 
a  heartache. 

The  game  of  the  gods  is  in  our  hands;  shall  we  play  it 
worthily?  Two  decades  of  inaction  at  this  juncture,  like 
those  which  followed  the  advent  of  the  overland  railway, 
would  decide  the  fate  of  the  city  adversely  for  the  century, 
and  the  effect  of  it  would  last  for  ten  centuries.  When 
the  shores  of  the  Pacific  are  occupied  as  the  shores  of  the 
Atlantic  now  are,  when  all  around  the  vast  arena  formed 
by  America,  Asia,  and  Australia  are  great  nations  of  wealth 
and  culture,  with  hundreds  of  Bostons  and  Baltimores. 
of  Londons  and  Liverpools,  the  great  American  republic 
would  scarcely  be  satisfied  with  only  a  porter's  lodge  at 
her  western  gateway.  % 

It  is  not  much  to  say  that  the  new  city  will  be  modern 
and  up  to  date,  with  some  widened  streets  and  winding 
boulevards,  gardens  hanging  to  the  hillside,  parks  witli 
lakes  and  cascades,  reservoirs  of  sea  water  on  every  hill 
top  ;  public  work  and  public  service,  street  cars,  telephones 
and  lighting  being  of  the  best.  Plans  for  such  changes 
were  prepared  before  the  fire;  they  can  be  extended  and 
carried  out  with  greater  facility  since  the  ground  has  been 
cleared  from  obstructions.  All  this  and  more  may  easily 
be  done  if  the  government  can  be  made  to  see  where  the 
true  interests  of  the  people  lie,  to  regard  a  west-coast  me 
tropolis  with  an  eye  for  something  of  beauty  as  well  as 
of  utility,  an  eye  which  can  see  utility  in  beauty,  and 


THE    STILL    SMALL   VOICE  123 

withal  an  eye  of  pride  in  possession.  A  hundred  million 
judiciously  expended  here  by  the  government  would  make 
a  city  which  would  ever  remain  the  pride  of  the  whole 
people,  and  command  the  admiration  and  respect  of  all 
the  nations  around  this  great  ocean. 

Of  what  avail  are  art  and  architecture  if  they  may  not 
be  employed  in  a  cause  like  this?  Here  is  an  opportunity 
which  the  world  has  never  before  witnessed.  With  limit 
less  wealth,  with  genius  of  as  high  an  order  as  any  that 
has  gone  before,  with  the  stored  experiences  of  all  ages 
and  nations — what  better  use  can  be  made  of  it  all  than 
to  establish  at  the  nation's  western  gate  a  city  which  shall 
be  the  initial  point  of  a  new  order  of  development? 

Away  back  in  the  days  of  Palmyra  and  Thebes  the 
rulers  of  those  cities  seemed  to  understand  it,  if  the  people 
did  not — that  is  to  say,  the  value  of  embellishment.  And 
had  we  now  but  one  American  Nebuchadnezzar  we  might 
have  a  Babylon  at  our  Pacific  seaport.  For  a  six-months' 
world's  fair  any  considerable  city  has  hitherto  been  able 
to  get  from  the  government  five  or  ten  millions.  And  why 
not?  There's  politics  in  it.  Can  we  not  have  some  of 
"those  politics"  for  a  respectable  west-coast  city?  Would 
it  not  be  economy  to  spend  some  millions  on  an  industrial 
metropolis  which  should  be  a  permanent  world's  fair  for 
the  enlightenment  of  the  Pacific?  The  nation  has  made 
its  capital  beautiful,  and  so  established  the  doctrine  that 
art,  architecture,  and  beautiful  environment  have  a  value 
above  ugly  utility.  May  we  not  hope  for  something  a  little 
out  of  the  common  for  the  nation's  chief  seaport  on  the 
Pacific,  a  little  fresh  gilding  for  our  Golden  Gate  ? 


CHAPTER  VI 

LIFE'S  COMPLEX  WAYS 

E  ARE  all  as  God  made  us,"  says  Sancho  Panza, 
'only  worse."  Yet  we  seem  dissatisfied  with 
God's  work,  and  are  constantly  trying  to  improve  it.  God 
himself  repented  that  he  had  made  man,  and  thought  to 
drown  him,  making  the  mistake  of  leaving  one  alive,  the 
best  he  could  find,  but  still  a  bad  one.  And  so  from  Noah 's 
time  until  now  humanity  has  been  wrangling  over  the  mat 
ter,  each  trying  to  convince  the  other  of  error,  until  to 
clinch  their  arguments  they  fall  to  fighting  and  seek  to  de 
termine  the  controversy  by  general  slaughter. 

Nor  even  yet  is  the  end  in  sight.  I  well  remember  when 
a  small  boy  how  I  used  to  flatten  my  hose  against  the  candy- 
shop  window,  longing  for  just  one  stick,  price  one  cent, 
only  to  turn  away  and  with  a  high  sense  of  duty  try  to  fix 
my  thoughts  upon  the  poor  pagan  who  for  his  soul's  salva 
tion  stood  in  so  much  greater  need  of  that  precious  coin 
than  I. 

Then  how  my  heart  would  warm  over  this  enforced  act 
of  self-denial,  as  on  the  first  Monday  evening  of  the  month 
I  trudged  along  the  path  to  the  meeting-house,  one  little 
hand  in  my  mother's  while  the  other  clasped  two  great 
round  coppers,  which  were  to  do  so  much  toward  helping 
God  out  in  revising  the  work  on  his  misfits  in  distant  lands. 
Then  after  a  comfortable  nap  with  my  head  in  my  mother 's 
lap,  while  the  good  minister  droned  through  the  often 
somewhat  colored  reports  of  workers  in  the  field,  I  was 
aroused  by  a  stir  in  the  congregation  and  heard  the  welcome 

124 


LIFE'S    COMPLEX   WAYS  125 

words,  "the  collection  will  now  be  taken  up  and  the  meet 
ing  closed  by  singing  the  missionary  hymn." 

Ah!  that  missionary  hymn,  the  epic  of  those  home- 
loving  saints.  Could  they  ever  question  its  truthfulness,  its 
literalness  ? 

"  From  Greenland 's  icy  mountains, 

From  India's  coral  strand, 

Where  Africa's  sunny  fountains 

Roll  down  their  golden  sands 

From  many  ancient  river, 

From  many  a  palmy  plain, 

They  call  us  to  deliver 

Their  lands  from  error's  chain." 

As  they  lifted  up  their  hearts  and  voices  could  they  not 
see  the  blubber-eaters  of  the  ice-fields  prostrate  with  grief, 
wailing  over  their  sins,  not  knowing  which  way  to  turn  for 
relief?  Could  they  not  hear  the  cry  of  the  cannibal,  on 
the  burning  sands,  as  he  turned  from  his  half-eaten  victim 
and  with  arms  outstretched  toward  'them,  the  little  naked 
pot-bellies  with  clasped  hands  and  eyes  rolled  heavenward 
joining  in  the  appeal,  all  begging  them  to  send  some  one 
to  tell  them  of  God  and  Jesus  and  how  they  might  be 
saved  ? 

Then  the  corollary : 

"Shall  we  whose  souls  are  lighted 
With  wisdom  from  on  high, 
Shall  we  to  man  benighted 
The  lamp  of  life  deny?" 

Certainly  not.  But  not  too  much  light,  heathen  friends, 
not  too  many  lamps.  We  forced  one  lamp  on  Nippon. 
Then  she  wanted  ten,  and  we  gave  her  them;  now  she 
wants  the  United  States. 

Refreshing  credulity !  Soul-satisfying  superiority !  And 
never  the  trouble  to  question  the  source  of  that  light,  or 
the  quality  of  the  wisdom  which  gave  us  the  precedence 
over  all  other  nations  as  the  recipients  of  divine  favor. 
Should  some  of  us  whose  souls  are  not  thus  so  brilliantly 
illuminated,  we  whom  wisdom  from  on  high  has  not  so 


126  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

kindly  treated,  should  we  pause  a  moment  to  consider  we 
might  have  the  temerity  to  ask  how  in  these  latter  days 
shines  the  light  of  wisdom  from  on  high  over  enlightened 
Europe,  whence  along  the  centuries  has  been  trumpeted  the 
doctrine  of  peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men.  For  it  may  be 
we  should  look  nearer  home  for  man  benighted,  and  suggest 
the  return  for  home  consumption  of  some  of  the  billions  of 
Bibles  and  tracts  with  attendant  missionary  men  and 
women  sent  forth  for  the  edification  of  the  good  people  of 
Greenland  and  India. 

And  then  were  Christ  and  Buddha  to  meet  by  chance 
and  seating  themselves  at  table,  with  pencil  and  paper, 
go  over  the  working  of  their  systems  for  the  past  two  thou 
sand  years  and  sum  up  the  results  of  their  teachings,  the 
winner  in  the  contest  to  be  thenceforth  the  acknowledged 
master  whom  the  other  with  all  his  people  must  forever 
after  serve;  would  it  then  eventuate  that  all  Europe  must 
become  followers  of  the  Buddha,  and  must  the  kaiser  then 
acknowledge  his  mistake,  must  acknowledge  that  instead  of 
second  son  of  God  he  is  first  son  of  the  devil,  with  many 
learned  doctors  his  ministering  spirits  and  legions  of  pro 
fessors  his  angels  ? 

As  compared  with  the  unhappy  mental  condition  of  his 
master  we  must  regard  the  sayings  of  Sancho  as  the  em 
bodiment  of  practical  good  sense.  An  ass  may  carry  a  big 
load  of  wisdom  sometimes,  even  up  to  the  portal  of  the 
halls  of  justice,  though  within  it  be  scattered  broadcast  by 
the  windmills. 

The  problem  of  man's  control  of  man  becomes  more 
and  more  involved  as  the  ages  pass  by.  It  was  a  simple 
matter  on  emerging  from  his  place  in  the  brute  creation 
for  the  strongest  to  assume  the  leadership,  and  like  the 
brutes  to  dominate  the  others.  But  in  due  time  it  came 
about  that  as  the  mind  of  man  evolved,  something  stronger 
than  brute  force  was  encountered. 

Man,  the  only  animal  with  propensities  so  involved  as 


LIFE'S    COMPLEX   WAYS  127 

to  require  applied  coercion  in  his  daily  intercourse,  laws 
for  the  regulation  of  conduct  emphasized  by  prison-houses, 
electrical  chairs,  and  the  hangman's  machinery  ill  fits  our 
lofty  ideals  as  heirs  of  heaven,  one  with  Christ.  It  is  kis 
met,  says  the  Mohammedan. 

Although  for  a  free  and  independent  people  government 
by  party  is  the  best  system  thus  far  evolved,  yet  in  the  re 
sult  is  shown  so  many  glaring  defects  that  one  sometimes 
despairs  of  ever  seeing  attained  even  approximate  perfec 
tion.  As  for  party  platforms,  they  are  but  leaky  scows 
made  only  to  float  flattering  promises  from  convention  to 
election.  To  the  youth  of  high  hopes  and  ardent  aspirations 
fresh  from  college  we  might  almost  say  the  less  you  have  to 
do  with  the  American  government  the  better ;  and  yet  upon 
such  the  very  existence  of  the  nation  depends.  Party  gov 
ernment  as  employed  by  the  English-speaking  world,  im 
perfect  as  it  is  and  ill  fitting  a  people  of  highest  culture,  is 
perhaps  the  best  system  yet  invented  for  progressive  re 
sults;  and  we  would  frankly  acknowledge  that  with  the 
elimination  of  the  harmless  humbug  of  sham  rulership  and 
aristocracy  to  match,  the  jurisprudence  and  government  of 
England  might  be  deemed  less  faulty  than  that  of  America 
with  its  prostituted  citizenship  and  loose  administration. 

Which  is  the  best  government  in  the  world  one  may 
ask  ?  The  Germans  will  say  that  theirs  is  the  best.  So  will 
say  the  English,  the  French,  and  the  Americans.  And  per 
haps  all  of  them  are  right,  the  best  government  being  that 
which  fits  the  people  best ;  and  as  people  differ,  different  gov 
ernments  are  required.  Here  are  two  republics  side  by  side. 
Unquestionably  the  best  government  for  Mexican  republi 
canism  was  that  under  Diaz,  a  democracy  upon  despotic 
principles,  a  better  government  than  our  boastful  presi 
dent  with  the  United  States  fleet  at  his  back  could  give,  a 
better  government  than  the  anarchic  republic  of  Mexico  will 
see  again  for  a  century.  Our  own  government  has  enough 
of  despotism,  the  despotism  of  demagogues,  of  labor  union 
ism,  money  trusts,  and  political  sharpers.  The  government 


128  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

of  Great  Britain  should  be  called  good  were  the  silly  sys 
tem  of  a  petticoat  king  and  sham  aristocracy  eliminated. 
We  frowned  on  Porfirio  Diaz,  called  him  dictator,  and 
tacitly  approved  of  his  expatriation.  Has  our  dictating 
in  Mexico  been  more  conducive  to  peace  and  prosperity 
than  his?  Were  Madero,  Huerta,  Carranza,  Villa  and  the 
other  bandits  and  revolutionists  better  men  bestowing  a 
better  government  than  that  of  Diaz? 

Mexico  would  be  better  off  had  no  pretense  been  made 
by  the  United  States  to  regulate  her  affairs.  The  United 
States  would  be  better  off  had  no  money  or  lives  been  spent 
in  making  such  pretense, — better  off  by  some  $400,000,000 
and  500  human  lives,  an  item  to  be  entered  on  the  book  of 
the  nation  to  the  account  of  Presidential  Fads  and  Follies. 

The  United  States  government  is  assuredly  the  best  for 
a  free  intelligent  and  patriotic  people.  The  English  govern 
ment  is  best  for  a  chronic  aristocracy,  capped  by  a  maud 
lin  royalty.  The  Mexican  government  under  Porfirio  Diaz 
was  the  best  for  that  country  at  the  time,  and  now  the  world 
awaits  the  fulfillment  of  the  promise  made  by  our  president, 
who  said, ' 1 1  will  never  withdraw  this  fleet  from  your  shores 
until  I  have  given  you  a  good  constitutional  government, 
such  as  will  make  of  you  a  great  nation,"  as  Jehovah  swore 
to  Israel,  and  neither  the  Jews  nor  the  Mexicans  are  a  great 
nation  as  yet,  nor  indeed  are  likely  so  to  be  for  some  cen 
turies  or  millenniums  to  come.  As  a  trial  of  government 
by  representative  democracy  on  an  extensive  scale  we  can 
not  claim  thus  far  for  the  United  States  of  America  a  huge 
success.  We  seek  dilligently  for  Mr  Lincoln's  government 
by  the  people  for  the  people  and  cannot  find  it.  We  see 
government  enough  by  demagogues,  by  cliques  and  cabals, 
by  labor  leaders,  Irish  agitators,  whiskey-shop  bosses,  rail 
way  men,  and  money  monopolists,  but  no  government  of 
the  people  by  the  people  and  for  the  people. 

Once  the  cry  was  all  for  religion.  The  end  justifies  the 
means.  Stolen  money  will  buy  as  much  salvation  as  honest 


LIFE'S    COMPLEX   WAYS  129 

gains.  Now  it  is  all  for  the  nation ;  and  still  the  end  justi 
fies  the  means.  Honor,  humanity,  all  must  go  to  save  in 
glorious  self. 

In  a  government  by  the  people  for  the  people,  should 
not  the  ballot  be  submitted  in  a  fair  and  honorable  man 
ner  ?  "We  say  of  elections  in  Mexico  that  they  are  not  fair. 
Are  they  fairly  held  with  us  ?  Is  it  fair  for  the  president  to 
run  the  government  for  the  purpose  primarily  of  reelecting 
himself  and  his  party  to  office ;  of  using  the  patronage  and 
machinery  of  the  government  not  for  the  good  of  the  people, 
but  for  his  own  benefit?  Instead  of  serving  their  country, 
instead  of  giving  fheir  time  and  attention  to  the  welfare  of 
the  people  what  are  our  legislators  and  office-holders  at 
Washington  doing?  Simply  serving  themselves,  studying 
and  struggling  to  maintain  party  influence  and  secure  re 
election  ;  snarling  over  petty  personal  details,  employing 
old  tricks  and  inventing  new  circumventions,  or  scouring 
the  county  and  filling  the  air  with  blatant  cries  of  their 
own  virtues  and  their  opponent's  villainy. 

Now  with  all  these  blessings  passed  down  to  us  by  the 
sharpers  of  our  civil  war,  should  not  our  hearts  be  singing 
with  joy?  But  alas!  they  do  not  sing;  all  the  good  old 
maxims  are  turned  topsy  turvy.  We  are  virtuous  but 
we  are  not  happy.  We  are  honest,  but  we  find  it  too  often 
a  poor  policy;  we  do  unto  others  as  they  would  do  to  us, 
but  we  do  not  always  do  it  first,  so  that  in  some  way  they 
seem  to  get  the  better  of  us.  We  are  drawing  near  our 
fate,  preparing  to  follow  the  advice  of  Job's  comforters,  to 
curse  our  luck  and  throw  up  the  sponge.  There  are  the 
wrongs  of  modern  industrialism,  the  horrors  heaped  upon 
the  poor  toiler,  who  for  three  or  six  dollars  a  day  whiles 
away  his  eight  hours  before  his  regular  visit  to  the  drinking- 
shop,  there  to  fill  himself  with  poisonous  whiskey  and  in 
dulge  in  incendiary  talk  of  the  socialistic  order,  the  tyranny 
of  capital  and  the  glorious  freedom  of  boycott,  strikes,  and 
the  facile  courts  of  law. 

There  is  a  writer  of  obviously  socialistic  proclivities, 


130  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

who  in  the  interest  of  the  single-tax  theory,  advances  many 
unsound  arguments  for  reducing  the  long  and  short  haul 
freight  transportation  on  railways  to  one  rate,  like  letter 
postage,  one  of  which  he  fails  to  mention,  and  perhaps  the 
most  pertinent  and  apparent,  that  it  costs  appreciably  no 
more  to  carry  a  letter  across  the  continent  than  across  the 
bay,  while  for  freight  every  extra  mile  is  an  extra  expense. 
With  no  leaning  whatever  towards  socialism,  or  single  - 
tax  fadism,  one  still  may  claim  some  of  the  rights  of  equity 
in  the  participation  in  the  gifts  of  nature.  The  earth  is  the 
Lord 's  and  the  fullness  thereof.  The  gold  was  not  all  made 
for  Morgan,  nor  the  oil  for  Rockefeller,  nor  the  iron  for 
Carnegie,  nor  all  the  wisdom  for  Woodrow  Wilson.  Prop 
erty  has  its  rights  and  should  be  protected  in  them,  but 
not  by  subverting  the  rights  of  the  people.  No  one  man 
has  the  right  to  hold  from  the  occupation  and  use  of  his 
fellow  man  a  million  acres  of  this  earth,  simply  because  he 
had  the  opportunity  or  cunning  to  acquire  them, — acres 
not  made  by  himself  but  by  the  Almighty  for  the  use  of 
all  his  people,  and  this  to  be  regulated  without  resorting 
to  any  single-tax  or  communistic  methods. 

Those  who  expatiate  on  the  felicities  of  old  age  as  a  rule 
have  never  tried  it.  I  have  lived  longer  than  I  expected, 
and  have  found  happiness  and  contentment,  yet  I  must  say 
that  with  a  few  exceptions  one's  last  days  are  not  one's  best 
days.  Not  that  I  would  quarrel  with  fate,  or  be  so  tied 
to  this  world  that  I  could  not  leave  it  if  I  would ;  but  only 
this,  that  while  the  pathway  of  life  is  none  too  smooth  in 
any  part,  youth  has  its  compensation  which  old  age  has  not. 
Farther  than  this,  the  victim  of  old  age  has  death  continu 
ally  staring  him  in  the  face,  and  though  he  may  not  fear 
the  grim  monster  unduly  the  fact  remains,  and  unless  this 
world  has  become  a  place  of  more  than  ordinary  pain, 
death  is  a  nuisance  and  altogether  unlovely.  It  breaks  all 
connections,  scatters  old  ties,  and  disorganizes  matters  gen 
erally. 


LIFE'S    COMPLEX   WAYS  131 

Yet  there  are  many  who  enjoy  their  later  days,  finding 
in  them  the  most  pleasurable  period  of  their  lives.  Jolly 
old  fossils  they  may  be,  bald-headed,  red-faced,  carrying  a 
scant  crop  of  hair,  teeth  tusky,  eyes  bleary,  throat-skin 
loose  and  flabby,  rather  a  thin  frame  withal,  though  with  a 
liberal  paunch  and  altogether  loveable.  Grandma  when 
she  is  good  is  delightful,  the  pride  of  the  household,  the  joy 
of  the  children,  telling  them  stories  and  entering  into  all 
their  plays  or  whatever  most  interests  them.  She  is  never 
in  evidence  except  when  well  groomed  and  properly  ar 
rayed.  Her  infirmities  are  laid  aside  not  to  be  spoken  of  in 
her  charmed  circle,  but  kept  concealed  for  the  doctor. 
However,  when  all  is  said,  there  is  not  much  pleasure  sim 
ply  in  being  old,  in  being  relegated  with  many  aches  and 
pains,  by  friends  and  family,  to  the  top  shelf.  Kindness, 
ah,  yes !  the  sweetest  solace  of  all ;  but  man  does  not  live  by 
kindness  alone ;  for  all  the  same  an  old  man  is  of  no  account, 
and  an  old  woman  of  still  less  account.  For  the  world  be 
longs  to  the  young;  the  old  have  little  further  use  for  it. 

Whom  the  gods  love  die  young,  for  thus  they  escape 
infelicities  of  the  ever  approaching  end.  Which  would 
imply  the  less  of  life  the  better,  or  may  be  none  at  all  were 
better  still.  In  some  respects,  and  under  certain  conditions, 
however,  full  maturity  may  be  better  than  youth,  the  last 
of  one 's  existence  better  than  the  first  of  it. 

As  old  age  comes  on  apace  the  aspect  of  life  changes. 
Joy  is  less  joyful;  sorrows  are  easier  borne,  wisdom  con 
centrates  with  age  and  experience;  so  does  folly;  there 
never  at  any  one  time  were  more  fools  in  the  world  than 
now.  Old  age  may  have  its  compensations  but  not  every 
one  is  fortunate  enough  to  find  them.  As  one  grows  old 
life  is  seen  through  the  reverse  end  of  the  telescope,  and 
affairs  which  at  one  time  seemed  of  paramount  importance 
assume  insignificant  proportions.  The  battle  for  wealth 
or  prestige  is  over ;  the  prize  if  won  is  worthless  to  the  win 
ner,  however  it  may  be  valued  by  those  destined  to  enjoy  it. 

The  primary  satisfaction  we  get  in  this  life  is  in  what  we 


132  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

do  for  others;  our  chief  enjoyment  is  in  seeing  those  we 
love  enjoy. 

If  man's  happiness  cuts  any  figure  in  the  economy  of 
life  one  would  think  a  reversal  of  the  order  of  youth,  man 
hood,  and  old  age  might  be  better;  that  is  to  say,  let  old 
age  come  first  and  have  it  over,  and  childhood  and  enjoy 
ment  come  afterward,  following  New  England  thrift,  sav 
ing  the  best  for  the  last. 

Since  boyhood  I  have  ever  been  disposed  to  rid  myself 
of  the  unpleasant  as  quickly  as  possible,  and  always  in  the 
early  part  of  the  day,  and  keep  the  best  for  the  afternoon. 
With  a  few  of  the  more  fortunate  life  is  always  afternoon. 
If  I  felt  constrained  to  utilize  the  whole  of  my  none  too 
perfect  apple,  I  must  eat  the  worst  part  first.  So  with  my 
past  all  before  me,  I  must  say  that  were  I  to  make  and 
people  a  world,  I  would  bring  forth  my  humanity  in  a  com 
pleted  condition,  with  all  the  attendant  aches  and  pains, 
as  well  as  the  wisdom  and  experience  of  full  maturity, 
thenceforth  to  have  ever  before  them  an  increase  of  joy 
with  consequent  diminuation  of  woe. 

Not  that  I  would  intimate  in  all  this  for  myself  an  un 
happy  old  age.  I  have  all  this  world  can  give,  with  some 
fortaste  of  the  next.  There  are  many  diseases  I  have  never 
had;  there  are  some  sins  I  have  never  committed;  many 
blessings  have  come  to  me,  more  than  I  deserve ;  for  I  can 
not  claim  with  Mr  Ford,  the  peace-maker,  that  I  never  in 
dulged  in  a  wrong  act  in  my  life.  I  have  done  many  wicked 
and  foolish  things,  and  like  our  worthy  president  have  been 
able  to  get  away  with  them. 

He  is  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule,  the  old  man 
who  can  look  about  him  and  see  only  the  best  of  children 
and  grandchildren,  who  on  looking  back  upon  an  active 
life  can  see  amidst  the  errors  and  mistakes  common  to 
human  imperfections  much  that  is  good,  much  that  will 
prove  useful  and  beneficial  to  those  who  come  after  him, 
with  no  serious  lapses  into  devious  ways;  give  this  man  a 
mind  at  rest  and  money  sufficient  for  his  needs  and  that  is 


LIFE'S    COMPLEX   WAYS  133 

all  this  world  can  do  for  him.  That  happiness  is  mine.  Add 
to  this  the  fixed  conviction  that  awaiting  him  in  the  world 
to  come  is  an  eternity  of  delight  even  though  this  conviction 
is  based  on  ignorance  and  vain  imaginings,  and  even  though 
the  stultified  intellect  is  satisfied  with  hollow  fancy  in  the 
place  of  reasonable  facts,  and  he  has  here  on  earth  such  a 
foretaste  of  heaven  as  should  make  him  eager  to  depart, 
though  oftener  he  is  willing  to  wait  his  maker's  time.  That 
happiness  is  not  mine,  nor  do  I  want  it. 

Another  picture  is  not  so  pleasing, — a  pauper  whose 
aching  bones  are  racked  by  incurable  disease,  alone,  all,  all 
alone  here  and  hereafter.  A  friendless  old  age  with  sick 
ness  and  poverty  makes  easy  the  transition  to  the  undis 
covered  country,  makes  us  rather  than  bear  the  ills  we  have 
fly  to  others  we  know  not  of,  even  if  such  others  exist. 

To  sit  in  the  corner  and  con  over  the  sins  and  short 
comings  of  a  long  life,  and  consider  the  many  promises  of 
holy  writ  of  a  hot  hell  fire  for  each  one  of  them  is  not 
specially  conducive  to  happy  reflections  or  a  green  old  age. 
Or  if  our  temperament  is  such  that  we  can  see  no 'glaring 
evil  in  our  past  life,  in  which  case  we  are  indeed  deluded, 
and  begin  to  rate  ourself  as  a  fool  for  having  missed  so 
many  fine  chances  for  cheating,  there  comes  in  a  new  line 
of  regrets. 

Conditions  conducive  to  relatively  comfortable  old  age 
may  be  easily  summed  up,  easier  given  than  secured.  First 
of  all  temperament,  not  to  say  temper,  has  much  to  do  with 
it.  To  direct  temperament  and  dislodge  temper,  one  must 
begin  the  work  long  before-  reaching  old  age. 

The  only  escape  from  the  ills  of  advanced  life  is  Chris 
tian  science,  which  gives  us  the  happy  assurance  that  there 
are  no  ills  in  life ;  a  remedy  not  invented  so  very  long  ago, 
and  to  be  administered  in  doses  with  Emanuelism  and  the 
attendant  fabrications  of  devotees.  A  book  might  be  writ 
ten  on  how  to  find  happiness  in  old  age,  the  writer  himself 
being  least  able  of  all  to  profit  by  it. 

Asked  if  I  had  no  fears  for  the  future,  I  said  No,  why 


134  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

should  I  have?  I  know  of  nothing  to  fear,  and  to  fear 
knowing  nothing  is  to  fear  nothing.  As  to  the  place  set 
apart  for  evil  doers,  I  fear  I  should  be  lonely  if  kept  out  of 
it.  Furthermore,  as  some  one  beautifully  assures  us : 

What  does  it  matter  since  we  may  not  know 
Whence  we  came  or  whither  we  must  go, 
What  does  it  matter  since  this  truth  is  clear 
We  are  in  the  self -same  hands  there  as  here? 

My  destiny  is  fixed ;  however  it  may  be  I  cannot  alter  it, 
then  why  bother?  My  life  has  been  as  I  myself  am,  as  I 
myself  was  made,  a  mixture  of  good  and  evil.  There  it 
must  rest. 

-One  word  of  warning  I  would  give,  and  but  one,  to 
those  approaching  the  decline  of  life.  Beware  of  having 
nothing  to  do.  To  one  who  has  led  an  active  life,  with  many 
cares  and  responsibilities,  with  many  persons  to  provide 
for  and  direct,  nothing  is  so  deleterious  to  mind  and  body 
as  idleness,  idleness  and  insipid  pastime.  This  book,  for 
example,  never  would  have  been  written  if  I  had  had  any 
thing  else  to  do.  And  for  like  excuse  many  books  are  writ 
ten,  and  the  empty  shelves  of  the  Carnegie  houses  are  being 
filled,  mostly  with  trash  little  better  than  that  on  Doctor 
Eliot's  five  foot  shelf.  Fortunate  is  he  who  dies  in  the 
midst  of  a  useful  career,  dies  without  having  to  be  separated 
from  the  work  in  which  he  found  the  greatest  pleasure,  and 
drag  out  weary  years  pinned  like  a  museum  butterly  to  a 
board. 

A  humorist  turned  sour,  as  is  reported  of  Mark  Twain, 
does  not  present  the  most  pleasing  picture  of  old  age.  He 
experienced  quite  enough,  however,  to  make  him  cynical  in 
the  losses  by  deaths  in  his  family,  and  the  loss  of  his  life 
savings  of  $100,000  in  a  book-publishing  business.  Were 
there  any  higher  powers,  he  thought  they  showed  a  callous 
indifference  to  the  fate  of  humanity.  Improvising  a  Satan 
he  makes  him  say  of  the  deity :  "A  God  who  could  make 
good  children  as  easily  as  bad,  yet  preferred  to  make  bad 
ones;  who  could  have  made  every  one  of  them  happy,  yet 
never  made  a  single  happy  one ;  who  made  them  prize  their 


LIFE'S    COMPLEX    WAYS  135 

bitter  life,  yet  stingily  cut  it  short;  who  gave  his  angeli 
eternal  happiness  unearned,  yet  required  his  other  childrei 
to  earn  it ;  who  gave  his  angels  painless  lives,  yet  cursed  hi; 
other  children  with  biting  miseries  and  maladies  of  mine 
and  body;  who  mouths  justice  and  invented  hell — mouths 
mercy  and  invented  hell — mouths  golden  rules,  and  for 
giveness  multiplied  by  seventy  times  seven,  and  invented 
hell;  who  mouths  morals  to  other  people  and  has  none 
himself;  who  frowns  upon  crimes,  yet  commits  them  all; 
who  created  man  without  invitation,  then  tries  to  shuffle 
the  responsibility  for  man's  acts  upon  man,  instead  of  hon 
orably  placing  it  where  it  belongs,  upon  himself ;  and  finally, 
with  altogether  divine  obtuseness,  invites  this  poor,  abused 
slave  to  worship  him ! ' ' 

"He  giveth  his  beloved  sleep,"  saith  the  scriptures,  and 
to  those  who  are  not  his  beloved  he  giveth — hell.  Do  not 
even  publicans  and  sinners  the  same? 

Never  anything  comes  to  us  the  second  time  as  at  the 
first ;  catch  it  then  as  it  flies.  With  the  incoming  twentieth 
century  marvels  increased  with  such  rapidity  and  intensity 
as  almost  to  revolutionize  science  and  society  as  I  have  be 
fore  mentioned.  The  inconceivable  came  forward  with  be 
wildering  force  in  the  form  of  electrical  inventions,  tele 
phones,  automobiles  and  the  rest.  Evolution,  ah,  yes !  that 
inexorable  machine  of  ever  moving  perpetuity,  the  great 
evolver,  whether  of  a  germ  toward  organism,  or  of  atoms 
to  a  universe.  An  unfolding,  it  may  be  toward  something 
higher  or  lower,  better  or  worse,  but  ever  a  development. 

Whether  to  progress  is  with  us  simply  a  moving  forward 
or  an  advancement  toward  a  higher  or  better  state  depends 
upon  the  foot  we  put  forward,  the  quality  of  our  ideals,  and 
the  quantity  of  lies  we  tell.  Half  the  world  is  sham,  and 
the  other  half  is  mostly  sham.  Although  honesty  does  not 
seem  always  the  best  policy,  yet  in  the  long  run  it  proves 
itself  so.  For  either  a  man  is  honest  or  he  is  not,  and  as 
he  is  he  will  be  rated  by  his  fellows. 


136  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

The  superstition  that  in  every  land  where  royalty  ob 
tains  is  a  worshipful  order  of  humanity  set  apart  by  heaven 
and  earth  to  rule  and  forever  to  be  kept  apart  by  non- 
intercourse  and  intermarriage  is  so  senseless  that  the  only 
accounting  for  its  continuance  among  people  of  average 
intelligence  lies  in  the  fear  of  disruption  of  society  and 
the  abolition  of  the  large  class  of  nobility  and  gentry  that 
derives  its  importance  by  hanging  on  to  the  skirts  of  roy 
alty.  Where  now  is  the  fancied  superiority  of  the  royalty 
and  aristocracy  of  England?  Royal  George,  the  pampered 
puppet  of  a  caste-ridden  community,  cuts  a  poor  figure  be 
fore  Welsh  George,  forty  years  ago  the  puny  son  of  a 
schoolmaster's  widow,  the  true  king  of  England  and  first 
nobleman  in  Europe.  . 

Blinded  by  egotism  Germany  dreamed  of  world  con 
quest,  then  a  moment  deemed  opportune  arriving,  plunged 
headlong  toward  its  accomplishment,  attributing  to  herself 
every  good  quality,  and  regarding  others  with  contempt. 
For  a  nation  so  wise  with  doctors  of  all  sorts  so  deep,  pro 
fessors  so  psychologic  and  a  kaiser  in  partnership  with  the 
Creator,  Germany  seems  to  play  the  game  of  fool  and 
makes  mistakes  up  to  the  limit.  She  was  sure  that  England 
would  never  join  France  and  Russia  in  arms.  She  was  sure 
that  Belgium -would  give  a  right  of  way  into  France.  She 
was  sure  she  could  conquer  the  world  with  or  without  the 
good  will  of  England  and  Belgium.  She  therefore  left  no 
means  of  avoiding  or  terminating  the  conflict,  for  herself  or 
others.  Germany  adopts  militarism  as  the  soul  of  war,  and 
war  in  man  as  in  beasts  being  the  normal  condition,  the 
relation  between  states  at  peace,  according  to  Bernhardi 
being  latent  war ;  while  Nietzsche  holds  that  everything  evil, 
terrible,  tyrannical,  wild-beast  like,  and  serpent-like  are 
aids  to  progress,  as  powerful  as  are  all  that  is  true  beautiful 
and  good, — suitable  doctrines  indeed,  for  kulturists  and 
followers  of  the  kaiser. 


LIFE'S    COMPLEX   WAYS  137 

Wonderful  indeed  from  the  beginning  are  life 's  complex 
ways,  wonderful  the  trend  of  affairs  in  these  latter  days, 
and  not  the  least  wonder  of  wonders  is  woman.  Woman, 
made  from  the  rib  of  a  man,  as  there  was  apparently  no 
dust  of  the  earth  of  proper  consistency  for  her  construction. 
Woman,  angel  of  light  and  love  and  joy  or  harbinger  of  hell, 
the  ever  impending  and  immortal  She,  man's  best  friend 
or  supremest  torment,  as  each  of  the  many  several  single 
matings  shall  determine  for  themselves. 

In  women  always,  in  war  at  the  present  moment  centres 
the  intensity  of  life  with  the  marvelous  rapidity  of  changes 
which  we  see  constantly  going  on  around  us.  Scarcely  is  a 
machine  or  invention  completed  and  set  in  motion  before 
another  more  intricate  and  complex  is  brought  forward  to 
take  its  place.  More  especially  is  this  the  case  in  regard  to 
war  and  farm  implements,  an  outfit  of  which  is  sometimes 
out  of  date  before  it  is  finished. 

The  type  of  women  in  America  is  quite  different  from 
that  of  American  women,  the  former  showing  local  char 
acteristics,  owing  to  mixtures  with  Europeans  from  various 
sections,  as  Scandinavians,  Italians,  Portuguese,  Greeks, 
and  Austrian  and  German  Jews. 

What  Loren  Knox  says  of  Chicago  people  fits  as  well  San 
Franciscans:  "It  has  always  been  a  city  of  opportunity. 
Formerly  this  was  not  merely  the  opportunity  of  making  a 
steady  livelihood,  but  it  was  the  possibility  of  a  quick  for 
tune  characteristic  of  all  the  boundless  realm  of  our  western 
states..  Men  were  spurred  on  by  such  chance  to  a  restless 
search  for  new  fields  for  development,  new  avenues  for 
gain,  and  there  was  scarcely  more  repose  and  content  in 
Chicago  in  1870  than  there  was  in  San  Francisco  in  1850. 
Unquestionable  American  countenances  are  comparatively 
rare  on  the  streets  in  the  heart  of  the  city,  where  are  daily 
assembled  a  proportionate  representation  of  Chicago's  en 
tire  population.  But  this  metropolis  is  performing  the 
characteristic  American  labor  of  assimilating  all  national 
ities,  of  doing  something  toward  making  the  world  Ameri- 


138  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

can.  It  is  the  great  social  alembic  of  this  republic,  the  grand 
consolidator  of  diversity  into  unity.  To  what  may  be  gen 
erously  called  the  refined  and  semi-refined  product  of  this 
distillation,  the  city  holds  alluring  prizes  of  American  citi 
zenship.  All  municipal  and  county  offices,  save  possibly 
the  mayoralty  and  judgeships,  are  easily  accessible  to,  one 
might  almost  say  exclusively  reserved  for,  the  quickly  stim 
ulated  political  ambition  of  the  first  or  second  generation 
of  aliens  who  are  eager  to  turn  their  suffrage  into  material 
gain.  These  positions  of  honor  and  emolument  are  not  free 
will  offerings  of  friendly  welcome,  but  are  the  fruits  of 
coercion  by  dictating  nationalities  in  the  muddy  arena  of 
local  statecraft,  Germany,  Ireland,  Bohemia,  Sweden,  Italy, 
— these  exotic  units,  learning  the  power  of  compromise  and 
combination  with  outer  forces,  here  in  Chicago  project 
themselves  with  telling  effect  into  our  political  life.  Doubt 
less  this  is  a  more  or  less  transient  phenomenon,  for  immi 
gration  laws  in  the  future  must  exclude  like  inferior  classes, 
and  descendants  of  these  cohesive  countrymen  will  in  time 
be  scattered  and  absorbed  in  broader  social  bounds." 

Extremes  meet  when  the  Barbary  coast  and  Burlingame 
fall  into  the  same  methods  for  extracting  fun  from  the 
lower  levels.  Both  classes  will  curtail  dress,  shortening  it 
at  top  and  bottom,  and  display  as  much  of  their  person  as 
the  men  will  permit;  both  classes  drink,  smoke,  gamble, 
indulge  in  lacivious  dances,  and  follow  up  amusements 
along  these  lines  to  the  end  of  the  ten  commandments. 
Classifying  in  colleges  and  elsewhere  women  as  the  equal 
of  man ;  equal  in  mind  and  mental  and  physical  endurance ; 
equal  in  vice  as  well  as  in  virtue;  equal  in  the  political 
strife  and  legerdemain  attendant  on  all  government,  does 
not  make  them  so.  The  dear  creatures  get  as  much  flattery 
now  from  those  who  desire  their  votes  as  formerly  they 
received  for  charms  of  person  which  they  were  supposed  to 
possess. 

Nine  times  in  ten  if  a  child  goes  wrong  the  fault  is 
with  the  parents.  Heredity  is  something,  but  environment 


LIFE'S    COMPLEX   WAYS  139 

with  precept  and  example  is  more.  A  foolish  mother,  a 
neglectful  or  injudicious  father,  and  the  evil  is  accom 
plished.  For  example,  of  what  can  a  fond  mother  be 
thinking  who  sits  placidly  by  and  sees  her  charming  young 
daughter,  in  full  undress,  hugged  to  the  bosom  of  some 
counter-jumper  and  whirled  about  in  a  dance  of  demorali 
zation  better  befitting  a  midnight  function  at  the  court  of 
Mauretania  ?  It  is  the  fashion.  Yes,  as  high  society  family 
disruption,  divorce,  and  subsequent  misery  are  the  fashion. 
Strange,  I  say,  that  chaste  mothers  will  give  their  chaste 
daughters  into  the  arms  of  unchaste  men  to  be  close  pressed 
in  a  voluptuous  whirl. 

The  mother  whose  primary  object  in  life  has  been  to 
see  her  daughter  happily  married,  weeps  none  the  less 
freely  when  the  child  takes  her  departure  after  the  wed 
ding.  But  her  tears  are  not  tears  of  woe,  nor  yet  alto 
gether  tears  of  joy;  there  is  the  mother's  aching  heart 
that  tells  her  she  has  lost  her  child,  who  can  never  again 
be  the  same  to  her. 

Parents  seldom  consider  the  question  of  compensation 
in  bringing  up  their  children.  As  a  rule  all  other  emotions 
are  swallowed  up  in  their  love  for  them,  in  their  care  for 
them,  in  their  present  comfort  and  happiness  and  in  plans 
for  their  future.  If  pay  is  contemplated,  along  these  or  any 
other  lines,  it  must  be  looked  for  while  they  are  yet  young, 
and  dependent,  and  trustful. 

Women  talk  no  end  of  nonsense  about  their  rights; 
what  they  will  and  will  not  have,  what  they  will  live  for 
and  what  they  will  die  for.  Now  my  sweet  sisters,  some 
of  you  sixteen,  but  more  toward  sixty  years  of  age,  and 
not  too  attractive  in  any  form,  you  should  know  that  this 
frantic  beating  of  the  air  is  wholly  unnecessary.  No  one 
objects  to  you  having  your  rights,  but  many  object  to  hav 
ing  them,  hence  these  so  frequent  divorces.  You  may  sing 
bass  if  you  like,  play  policeman,  wear  short  skirts  asd 
spread  eagle  hats  and  strut  and  straddle,  vote  and  make 
stump  speeches,  swing  your  arms,  chew  gum,  talk  loud  and 


140  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

manish,  and  make  fools  of  yourself  generally.  Every  one 
of  you,  dear  creatures,  to  your  taste.  The  men  do  not 
object,  nor  do  they  admire;  they  do  not  even  like  to  look 
at  you. 

"Slaves!"  cries  the  militant  suffragette,  pointing  the 
finger  of  scorn  to  her  better  behaved  sisters. 

Yes,  we  are  all  slaves,  women  slaves  of  .the  men,  men 
slaves  of  the  women,  and  the  world  of  humanity  slaves  to 
folly  and  superstition.  "Give  me  that  woman  who  is  not 
passion's  slave,"  Hamlet  might  as  well  have  said. 

There  may  be  men  or  women  who  are  without  passion, 
persons  in  whom  the  seeds  of  love  and  hate  were  never 
planted,  or  if  once  there  are  now  dead ;  but  the  normal  man 
with  passions  roused  rejects  his  training  and  becomes  a 
brute.  On  any  pretext  whatever  mere  woman  will  set  up 
mere  man  as  a  natural  enemy  and  proceed  to  fight  him. 
When  she  has  conquered  she  knows  not  what  to  do  with 
him  except  to  set  him  up  in  some  new  attitude  and -knock 
him  down  again.  The  dear  peace-loving  creatures  are  never 
so  happy  as  when  screaming  over  their  rights  and  wrongs. 

Why  should  we  deprecate  human  passions  implanted  by 
the  creator,  brute  passions,  if  you  like,  being  partly  brute. 
Man  and  beast  were  made  for  love  and  war,  for  beastly 
love  and  beastly  war.  Not  free  love  nor  licentiousness, 
even  brutes  do  not  so  indulge. 

We  are  all  after  freedom  and  yet  we  know  not  what 
freedom  is.  Self  government  says  the  publicist.  Self  and 
no  government  says  the  socialist.  Yet  the  savage  left  to 
himself  in  his  forest  feels  the  strain  of  destiny  fastened 
upon  him  even  there. 

After  all,  were  we  disposed  to  be  captious,  we  might 
say  that  freedom  as  a  term  applied  to  individuals  and  em 
ployed  in  popular  demonstrations,  does  not  exist.  The 
absolute  liberty  of  action,  inherited  by  the  primitive  man 
from  the  dust  from  which  he  sprang,  he  is  forced  to  sur 
render  to  his  rulers,  who  are  held  in  subjection  by  their 
many  masters. 


LIFE'S    COMPLEX   WAYS  141 

What  do  women  want  ?  Do  they  themselves  know  ?  And 
when  they  get  it  why  do  they  not  keep  it,  and  not  throw 
the  bauble  away  like  a  spoiled  child?  The  battle  fought, 
the  ballot  secured,  they  put  it  in  the  cupboard  and  forget 
all  about  it.  That  they  crave  approbation,  that  they  like 
to  be  regarded  in  possession  of  qualities  meritorious  is  ob 
vious.  The  several  classes,  however,  have  different  sign- 
manuals  which  they  employ  as  proof  of  merit.  When  one 
class  smiles  extensively  for  her  portrait  in  the  newspapers, 
another  class  for  publication  puts  on  with  her  laces  the 
orthodox  British  stare,  which  she  has  seen  and  admired  in 
Europe,  and  which  she  imagines  marks  the  lady.  Yet  an 
other  class  with  a  still  stonier  stare  at  all  the  plebeian 
world,  refuses  her  portrait  to  the  public  in  any  form,  pre 
tending  superiority  and  indifference  while  coveting  no 
toriety  the  most  of  all. 

Women  do  not  make  themselves  more  lovely  or  loveable, 
or  add  to  man's  respect  for  them,  by  posing  as  political 
sharpers  or  assuming  the  coarser  and  more  selfish  occupa 
tions  of  business  or  politics. 

Women  love  to  fight  for  what  they  want.  Whatever 
comes  too  easily  is  of  little  value  and  esteemed  accord 
ingly.  Men  do  not  really  care  whether  they  have  the 
ballot  or  not.  We  give  it  to  little  black  piccaninnies  and 
to  the  little  yellow  minks,  why  should  not  lovely  woman 
have  it?  Why  should  she  not  puddle  in  politics  if  she 
so  desires?  Evidently  she  regards  such  accomplishments 
as  added  charms,  and  so  they  may  be  in  the  eyes  of  her 
beefy  friends.  Mrs  Pankhurst  yelping  at  the  l>eels  of 
Mr  Asquith  through  the  streets  of  London  is  an  interest 
ing  spectacle,  particularly  to  the  rabble. 

High  position  brings  out  either  the  better  or  the  worse 
qualities  of  the  man;  sometimes  both.  Human  values  are 
transformed  or  turned  topsyturvy  in  the  great  man 's  mind, 
and  with  the  revaluation  of  all  the  world  he  revalues  him 
self.  The  infection  of  royalty  once  in  the  blood  it  is  diffi- 


142  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

cult  to  eradicate  it.  The  diseased  person  himself,  whether 
deposed  or  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  his  alleged  right,  is 
first  of  all  a  believer  in  his  divine  origin  and  mission,  in 
which  hallucination  his  subjects  and  sycophants  lend  their 
aid  in  conformation.  All  the  long  way  from  George,  fig 
ure-head  of  England,  and  William,  soul  and  saint  of  Ger 
many,  to  Queen  Lil  of  Honolulu  it  is  the  same,  superiority 
over  common  clay  from  everlasting  to  everlasting. 

It  was  after  all  only  a  leathery  faced  old  woman  that 
appeared  as  Queen  Liliuokalani  in  the  throne  room  of  the 
old  royal  palace  in  Honolulu  last  November  to  celebrate 
simultaneously  with  a  like  celebration  at  San  Diego  the 
twenty-third  anniversary  of  her  abdication  as  ruler  of  the 
Hawaiian  monarchy.  At  mid-day  the  aged  queen  pressed 
a  wireless  key  that  unfurled  a  torn  flag  of  the  ancient  king 
dom  in  the  Plaza  de  Panama  of  the  San  Diego  exposition. 
It  was  also  the  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  the  late  King 
Kalakaua,  brother  of  Queen  Liliuokalani,  the  exposition 
ceremony  would  honor. 

In  Honolulu  her  majesty  took  her  place  on  the  royal 
dais  surrounded  by  survivors  of  the  miltary  staffs  and 
the  •  ladies  in  waiting  from  the  courts  of  Kalakaua  and 
Liliuokalani.  Two  of  the  chamberlains  of  the  Kalakaua 
dynasty  were  present,  who  as  well  as  the  military  aides 
wore  the  brilliant  uniforms  of  the  days  of  the  monarchy. 
For  this  one  day,  the  queen  again  would  come  into  her 
own.  The  etiquette  of  the  court  of  St  James  prevailed 
as  a  compliment  to  the  former  ruler,  and  the  evening  ball 
was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  social  functions  since  the 
days  of  the  monarchy.  The  forty-foot  emblem  that  was 
used  at  the  royal  palace,  here  floated  in  the  breeze,  accom 
panied  by  "Hawaii  Ponoi,"  the  national  anthem,  which 
was  played  for  royalty  only.  Following  this,  "Aloha" 
was  played  by  the  band.  This  music  is  of  the  queen's 
own  composition.  This  song  was,  in  fact,  the  queen's  fare 
well  when  she  left  the  throne  in  1893. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF    LYING 

WHY  should  we  all  so  abominate  lying?  So  essential 
an  element  in  society,  so  inseparable  an  ingredient 
from  human  nature  should  surely  be  treated  with  respect. 
The  universality  of  the  thing  is  without  compare.  In  time 
the  practice  dates  from  Eden  when  the  serpent  talked  with 
Eve.  The  first  spoken  word  by  any  of  the  company  of 
Adam,  according  to  holy  writ,  was  a  lie,  and  from  that 
day  to  this  there  never  has  lived  a  man  or  a  woman  who 
has  not  in  one  way  or  another  indulged  in  deception. 
The  practice  is  current  in  every  nation ;  it  is  indigenous 
in  every  land.  The  law  sanctions  it;  the  church  upholds 
it;  humanity  as  at  present  constructed,  society  as  at  pres 
ent  organized  cannot  exist  without  it.  So  it  is  with  regard 
to  war,  with  regard  to  adultery,  with  regard  to  theft, 
murder,  and  all  the  sins  that  flesh  is  heir  to,  with  all  the 
evils  implanted  in  man's  nature  when  man  was  made, 
they  are  ineradicable  so  long  as  humanity  remains  as  it  is. 

Religion  pretends  to  change  human  nature;  but  does 
it?  Did  it  change  the  nature  of  Constantine,  of  the  Cenci, 
of  Torquemada  ?  For  a  final  answer  we  have  only  to  point 
the  finger  to  Christian  Europe  as  it  now  lies  bleeding. 

When,  we  consider  the  agency  and  importance  of  falsi 
fication  in  the  affairs  of  men — and  women,  its  psychologic 
as  well  as  its  economic  influence  and  effect,  perhaps  it 
might  be  deemed  worth  while  to  legalize  it  and  make  it 
respectable.  Worse  things  have  been  made  respectable, 
as  murder  and  robbery,  when  they  are  called  war. 

Now  lying,  though  it  is  merely  a  vice,  we  abhor,  as  we 

143 


144  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

abhor  all  vices,  and  justly  so.  Aside  from  the  immorality 
of  it,  it  is  a  contemptible  thing,  marking  a  defect  and 
showing  depravity,  whether  in  man  or  woman,  whether 
in  war,  diplomacy,  or  trade.  I  can  defend  myself  from 
a  thief ;  I  will  take  my  chances  with  a  murderer ;  but  when 
it  comes  to  a  liar,  give  me  room  I  beg  of  you  to  pass  by  on 
the  other  side. 

There  are  all  sorts  of  liars  and  lying;  certain  phases 
of  the  thing  are  held  by  some  to  be  justifiable.  Let  those 
who  will  plead  for  any  sort  of  moral  rottenness  their  fancy 
leads  them  to,  I  see  nothing  attractive  in  deception.  A 
man  must  feel  himself  unclean  who  lies,  and  does  so  feel; 
you  see  it  in  his  shifty  eye  and  in  his  hang-dog  attitude. 

What  percentage  of  all  the  words  in  our  vocabulary, 
spoken  or  written,  are  used  to  promulgate  truth,  or  to 
hide  it?  Could  an  accounting  be  made  the  result  would 
be  astounding.  Of  all  that  is  contained  in  the  thousands 
of  libraries  in  the  world  how  much  of  it  is  true?  Restore 
the  Alexandrian  library,  go  carefully  through  its  contents, 
and  I  doubt  not  that  all  of  truth  you  would  find  could 
be  carried  away  in  a  bushel  basket. 

Over  a  presidential  election  mendacity  becomes  ram 
pant.  From  the  president  himself,  who  seeks  reelection, 
to  the  policeman  on  the  street,  from  doctor  to  demagogue, 
from  philosopher  to  fool  we  do  not  even  look  for  truth. 
Lies  only,  lies  all;  where  the  truth  is  accidentally  spoken 
the  retort  is,  it  is  a  lie.  Over  every  political  issue  lies 
are  hurled  from  one  side  to  the  other,  serving  much  the 
same  purpose  as  the  stink-pot  of  the  chivalrous  Germans 
in  war. 

Lying  as  a  fine  art  has  gone  out.  The  talent  to  deceive 
has  become  a  staple  asset  of  society.  The  maxims  of  Machi- 
avelli  and  Chesterfield  are  no  longer  employed,  even  by 
diplomats.  As  a  fine  art  it  passed,  descending  into  the 
depths  of  brutality  with  the  assassination  of  Belgium  by 
the  German  emperor.  Up  to  that  time  high  grade  decep- 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF   LYING  145 

tion  was  a  prominent  factor  in  international  intercourse, 
and  the  most  important  instrument  of  the  diplomats.  But 
the  kaiser  killed  it  as  an  asset  by  openly  avowing  his 
independence  of  truth-telling,  asseverating  that  his  bond 
was  no  better  than  his  word,  neither  being  worth  anything. 

As  a  fine  art  it  is  no  longer  employed,  being  now  mo 
nopolized  as  a  useful  art,  as  an  asset  of  industrialism,  an 
ever-present  aid  in  society,  and  a  necessity  in  political 
and  international  affairs. 

As  an  every  day  indulgence  it  is  in  greater  force  than 
ever.  The  lake  that  burneth  with  fire  and  brimstone,  where 
in  the  olden  times  liars  found  rest,  one  would  think  was 
long  since  filled,  and  that  mendacious  souls  now  flitter 
everywhere  occupying  all  space.  Yet  in  this  lake,  if  we 
may  believe  the  scriptures,  all  liars  shall  have  their  part; 
and  as  we  are  again  assured  that  all  men  are  liars, — and 
all  women,  then  it  must  needs  follow  that  all  men  and  all 
women  who  have  ever  lived  on  this  earth,  and  have  passed 
on,  must  be  in  that  lake ;  wherefore  the  lake  must  be  very 
large  to  contain  so  many,  those  who  are  already  there  and 
those  who  are  so  rapidly  passing  on,  as  large  in  space,  let 
us  say,  as  a  hundred  million  times  that  marked  out  by  the 
orbit  of  our  celestial  system. 

Falsification  is  a  highly  important  asset  in  all  the  pro 
fessions.  Take  the  medical  profession  for  example.  What 
would  any  doctor  be  were  he  obliged  always  to  speak  the 
truth?  He  would  not  long  be  a  doctor;  and  if  the  physi 
cian  restricts  himself  to  verbal  lying  alone  he  does  well. 

I  asked  an  eminent  surgeon  the  other  day  what  is  the 
secret  of  the  Mayo  brothers'  success  apart  from  superior 
skill,  for  many  others  have  superior  skill  who  do  not  reach 
the  position  of  fame  and  popularity  enjoyed  by  them. 
The  answer  was,  "absolute  honesty."  "Honesty,"  I  said, 
"what  is  that;  what  is  honesty  in  a  physician?" 

"First,"  he  said,  "always  to  speak  the  truth;  secondly, 
always  to  act  the  truth."  That  is  all;  that  is  honesty  in 
a  physician.  It  is  a  sort  of  honesty  that  most  of  us  do 


146  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

not  like.  It  is  as  far  removed  from  Christian  science 
and  Emmanuelism  as  east  from  west.  When  the  latter 
movement  first  came  into  notice  another  prominent  prac 
titioner,  who  was  considering  the  feasibility  of  uniting 
that  fad  with  his  practice,  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  it. 
I  said  that  it  struck  me  as  an  acknowledgment  of  weak 
ness  on  both  sides,  of  medicine  requiring  the  aid  of  religion 
for  the  fullest  results,  and  of  religion  using  medicine  for 
the  same  purpose.  Ministering  to  a  mind  diseased  and  to 
a  body  diseased  are  both  good  work,  but  I  preferred  my 
dose  from  separate  vials. 

Honestly  to  speak  the  truth.  It  certainly  was  a  sort 
of  honesty  that  proved  a  good  policy  with  the  Mayos; 
thoroughly  to  diagnose,  giving  the  patient  the  exact  situ 
ation,  with  the  chances  of  failure  and  the  prospect  of  re 
covery,  governed  in  this  neither  by  profit  of  money  or 
reputation,  nor  of  an  interest  in  some  sanitarium,  hospital, 
or  other  .outside  influence. 

Neither  is  it  honest  in  a  doctor  to  follow  the  example 
of  the  builders  of  the  Central  Pacific  railroad,  some  of 
whom  bear  to  this  day  and  will  always  bear  the  reputation 
of  malefactors,  whose  custom  was  to  charge  all  or  more 
than  the  traffic  would  stand.  It  is  right  and  fair  to  charge 
the  rich  more  than  the  poor,  but  to  steal  from  the  rich 
man,  in  the  form  of  an  exorbitant  fee,  pay  for  the  poor 
man,  meanwhile  calling  work  for  the  latter  charity  on 
the  part  of  the  physician  is  not  honest. 

If  a  physician  has  made  a  wrong  diagnosis,  or  a  mis 
take  in  an  operation,  should  he  confess  it?  R.  C.  Cabot 
"finds  him  subject  to  little  or  no  professional  condemna 
tion  until  recent  times.  Those  friendly  to  the  proposition 
ask,  What  is  the  good  of  getting  everybody  down  on  us? 
Those  unfriendly  will  rarely  regard  it  as  his  duty  to  con 
fess.  With  regard  to  veracity,  medical  standards  in  gen 
eral  demand  that  the  doctor  shall  never  lie  for  his  own 
benefit,  but  that  in  dealing  with  patients  he  shall  be  gov 
erned  only  by  the  patients'  best  interest.  If  those  inter- 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF   LYING  147 

ests  seem  to  the  doctor  to  demand  that  the  truth  be  colored, 
shaded,  or  suppressed,  it  is  then  deemed  right  for  him 
to  save  the  patient  rather  than  the  truth,  especially  re 
membering,  as  he  muddles  accuracy  with  honesty,  that 
the  unpleasant  truth  which  is  suppressed  may  turn  out 
to  be  no  truth  at  all.  Veracity  is  tempered  in  the  doctor's 
mind  by  his  dominant  desire  to  help  and  comfort  the 
patient,  above  all  things  to  do  no  harm.  He  is  unwilling 
to  make  a  fetish  of  truth-speaking  and  very  keenly  aware 
that  he  may  not  possess  the  truth  at  all.  There  was  much 
good-natured  chuckling  in  medical  circles  a  few  years  ago 
when  a  hide-bound  medical  truth-teller  steeled  himself  to 
the  task  and  broke  to  a  sick  confrere  the  awful  news  that 
he  had  tuberculosis,  only  to  discover  a  week  later  that  the 
supposed  truth  was  false.  The  sick  doctor  rapidly  con- 
valsced  and  readily  forgave  the  mistake,  but  the  wise  pun 
dits  of  the  medical  profession  ended  their  chuckling  with 
grave  warnings  about,  'You  see  what  it  comes  to,  this 
truth  business.'  We  don't  know  it  all  by  a  good  deal  yet. 
The  distinction  between  veracity  and  correctness  is  blurred 
among  all  sorts  and  conditions,but  perhaps  nowhere  so 
persistently  as  in  medical  ethics.  That  the  most  ignorant 
and  therefore  incorrect  speaker  may  be  utterly  truthful 
and  honest  is  a  distinction  which  is  ignored  by  many, 
especialty  when  one  is  trying  to  defend  the  benevolent 
lies  of  the  kindly  doctor.  The  dominant  tendency  of  med 
ical  ethics  is  confessedly  to  subordinate  everything,  even 
honesty,  to  the  patient's  private  interests,  as  the  doctor 
sees  them.  But  against  this  dominant  tendency  two  slight 
counter  currents  are  beginning  to  make  themselves  felt. 
Both  of  them  mark  the  direction  of  a  force  which  makes 
for  the  doctor's  emancipation  from  the  servile  dependence 
on  his  patient.  They  come  from  modern  surgery  and 
modern  scientific  medicine,  which,  invading  the  field  of 
traditional  medicine,  tend  to  breed  in  the  physician  a  habit 
of  looking  for  truth  and  depending  on  the  verdict  of 
reality,  whatever  his  own  or  others'  wishes  may  say. 


148  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

''Formerly  the  doctor  who  could  not  win  the  favor  of 
his  neighbors  when  they  called  him  in  sickness,  must  starve 
or  seek  other  work.  If  the  sick  man  and  his  family  were 
afraid  of  open  windows,  the  windows  must  be  kept  shut 
even  in  pneumonia,  when  the  open  window  is  the  patient's 
best  medicine.  The  malade  imaginaire,  if  she  chance  to 
be  importunate  and  rich,  could  hardly  be  shaken  off  or 
told  the  bracing  truths  which  her  condition  demands.  The 
doctor  must  satisfy  his  patients,  even  if  he  has  to  humor 
their  whims  and  weaknesses  in  a  rather  humiliating  way. 
Until  recently  there  was  no  money  in  serving  the  public 
good,  and  there  is  not  much  even  yet,  but  a  little  goes  a 
long  way  to  change  medical  ethics.  For  even  one  or  two 
public  health  officers,  paid  to  disseminate  the  unvarnished 
truth  about  open  windows,  imaginary  diseases,  and  useless 
drugs,  get  the  ear  of  the  public  as  no  private  doctor  can, 
and  thereby  make  it  easier  for  the  private  doctor  to  work 
straight  for  his  patient's  good,  without  bowing  to  ham 
pering  superstition.  Thus  the  privately  paid  doctor  grows 
bolder.  He  finds  less  temptation  to  act  like  a  hired  ser 
vant  who  must  humor  his  master  on  pain  of  discharge  if 
he  doesn't.  He  finds  it  easier  to  make  his  patient  listen, 
obey,  and  be  educated.  Thus  the  doctor's  ethical  temper 
becomes  less  servile  and  more  independent.  Surgery  then 
even  bad  surgery,  makes  for  mental  clearness,  and  mental 
clearness  is  a  potent  aid  to  veracity.  Even  a  moderately 
truthful  man  is  tempted  into  strict  veracity  of  statement 
if  the  picture  within  his  mind  as  he  speaks  it  is  sharp  cut 
and  brightly  colored.  Veracity  may  then  become  the  path 
of  least  resistance,  so  that  even  counter  motives  fail  to 
swerve  it.  On  the  other  hand,  in  a  mind  full  of  fog,  the 
desire  to  be  honest  easily  loses  its  way.  A  doctor  recently 
said  in  public  what  every  doctor  says  in  private,  that 
there  are  too  many  surgical  operations  performed  by  men 
who  have  not  the  skill  to  make  the  operation  of  benefit 
to  the  patient,  with  the  result  that  many  necessary  oper 
ations  are  not  done  because  people  come  to  distrust  nearly 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF    LYING  149 

all  surgeons.  The  local  medical  society  reprimanded  the 
speaker  for  unethical  conduct  on  the  ground  that  such 
statements,  to  which  no  one  denies  the  truth,  should  not  be 
made  to  lay  audiences,  for  they  diminish  public  confidence 
in  the  profession.  When  a  doctor  says  that  reforms  should 
come  from  within  the  profession  alone  he  is  to  a  certain 
extent  conspiring  against  the  public  which  desires  to  see 
reforms  fostered,  like  those  in  trade  or  thought,  both  from 
within  and  without." 

Lying  is  usually  accompanied  by  dishonesty,  though 
honest  lying  is  possible  in  rare  instances.  Most  of  us  are 
liars;  some  of  us  are  sometimes  honest  in  our  lying. 

"When  is  a  lawyer  dishonest?  When  he  pleads  a  case 
knowing  himself  to  be  in  the  wrong. 

When  is  a  doctor  dishonest?  When  he  employs  means 
and  methods  to  get  the  most  possible  money  from  the 
patient,  as  unnecessary  operations  and  consultations. 

When  is  a  preacher  dishonest  ?  When  he  does  not  state 
frankly  that  he  knows  nothing  of  what  he  is  attempting 
to  demonstrate,  and  that  is  all  the  time. 

Sporty  doctors,  of  whom  there  are  several  in  every 
large  city,  are  not  the  most  agreeable  persons  to  encounter 
in  a  sick  room.  They  affect  good  living,  an  interest  in 
prize-fights  or  other  brutal  divertisements,  and  think  it 
meritorious  to  bleed  rich  patients — otherwise  than  with 
a  lancet. 

A  trick  many  doctors  have  is  to  take  a  case,  and  then 
pretend  to  be  called  away  in  order  to  give  another  doctor 
a  share  in  the  spoils,  whom  they  call  in  to  take  their  place 
thus  vacated. 

There  are  too  many  doctors  and  lawyers  who  do  not 
scruple  to  present  a  rich  client  with  an  extortionate  bill 
as  opportunity  offers. 

When  a  plaintiff  comes  into  court  with  a  case  against 
a  doctor  it  is  practically  impossible  to  get  a  doctor  who 
will  give  expert  testimony  against  another  doctor.  It  has 
been  the  experience  of  all  lawyers  that  doctors  will  not 


150  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

testify  against  each  other  in  damage  suits.  Occasionally 
a  man  will  give  expert  testimony  for  a  plaintiff,  but  such 
occasions  are  rare. 

We  can  have  no  conception  of  the  untruths  promul 
gated  in  the  name  of  religion,  whether  as  preached  from 
the  pulpit,  printed  in  books,  or  disseminated  along  the 
ordinary  walks  of  life.  No  one  can  ever  know  how  much 
of  what  the  speaker  says  he  believes  to  be  true. 

There  are  preachers  who  are  losing  their  grip  on  their 
professions.  As  when  Mr  Parkhurst  says: 

"  There  is  no  spot  in  the  page  of  history  so  black  as 
the  blot  that  has  just  recently  been  dropt  upon  it.  Our 
civilization  is  brilliant,  but  it  is  unholy.  The  fruits  of 
our  civilization,  such  as  intelligence,  discoveries,  inven 
tions  of  all  kinds  have  been  among  the  most  efficient  con 
tributions  to  the  brutalities  of  the  last  two  years.  The 
current  ebullition  of  the  patriotic  spirit  is  wonderful,  and 
from  one  point  of  view  is  most  encouraging,  but  is  purely 
the  outcome  of  our  humanism.  The  world  will  continue  to 
be  a  fighting  world,  and  when  it  is  a  matter  of  fighting, 
the  nation  with  the  weakest  military  equipment  will  be 
the  victim  of  a  disastrous  liability." 

We  have  waited  a  long  time  for  a  better  world,  from 
Cain  with  his  club  to  the  kaiser  with  his  Krupp  guns  and 
submarines. 

We  must  not  always  measure  the  piety  of  the  congre 
gation  by  the  parson's  salary,  lest  we  wrong  the  church's 
poor;  but  half  of  the  churches  in  Christendom  might  well 
take  shame  to  themselves  for  the  salary  paid  their  preacher, 
and  the  preacher  might  well  take  shame  to  himself  for 
following  such  a  business. 

Lying  as  an  accomplishment  of  nature  and  of  man  is 
probably  the  most  evenly  distributed  of  any  characteristic 
throughout  the  world.  It  is  indigenous  everywhere. 

Until  man  is  remodeled  and  formed  anew,  lying  is  as 
much  an  essential  of  progress  as  war  or  any  other  wick 
edness. 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF    LYING  151 

What  is  lying?  We  know  what  it  is,  we  have  all  prac 
tised  it  enough  to  know.  It  is  to  falsify,  misrepresent, 
utter  falsehood;  it  is  to  speak  or  act  knowingly  that  which 
is  not  true  with  intent  to  deceive ;  to  create  a  misleading 
or  deceitful  impression. 

Millions  there  are  of  vicarious  liars. 

Full  of  restless  deceit  are  the  sordid  souls  who  struggle 
for  prominence  in  society,  made  up  of  sham  and  selfish 
ness  whose  pride  is  supremacy  in  the  smart  or  silly  set. 

Our  trusted  and  trustful  Saint  Peter,  after  his  big 
falsehoods  backed  by  oaths,  and  a  period  of  repentance, 
true  or  false,  might  unblushingly,  rightfully  and  religiously 
slay  both  Ananias  and  Sapphira  for  their  misstatement 
about  the  amount  of  their  poor  little  property  which  they 
were  giving  over  to  the  none  too  meritorious  apostles. 

Besides  a  weariness,  lying  shows  lack  of  strength,  and 
as  women  are  weaker  than  men  they  are  more  facile  in 
fibbing.  Further,  as  table-talk  and  parlor  conversation 
becomes  more  and  more  in  vogue,  speech  grows  looser, 
scandal  sending  it  forward  with  a  rush.  Madam  will  roll 
you  off  a  basketful  over  her  knitting,  while  the  charming 
daughter  paddles  her  canoe  between  chewing-gum  and 
giggles  over  a  sea  of  lies  without  missing  a  stroke. 

When  company  is  present,  and  tongues  wax  loud  in 
clatter,  the  impossible  child,  not  yet  trained  in  the  school 
of  duplicity  is  sent  out  of  the  room.  I  remember  certain 
conscientious  ladies  of  the  old  regime  who  were  careful 
in  their  speech  to  tell  the  truth,  but  they  have  all  long 
since  passed  away.  Caught  in  a  sin  of  omission,  the  good 
old  lady  now  exclaims  "Too  bad!  I  am  not  quick  at  pre 
varication."  "Pardon  me,  madanl,  you  do  yourself  nn 
injustice." 

There  are  all  sorts  and  grades  of  deception;  lying  in 
the  first  degree,  with  intent;  accidental  lying;  lying  with 
no  thought  of  deception ;  incidental  lying ;  constitutional 
lying,  and  so  on. 

With  some  lying  is  a  necessity,  with  others  a  luxury. 


152  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

Throughout  the  vast  empire  of  deception  we  wind  our 
way,  some  of  us  lying  to  live,  others  living  to  lie.  We  none 
of  us  like  to  appear  exactly  as  we  are;  in  our  reading, 
in  our  religion,  in  all  polite  intercourse  we  seem  in  some 
degree  to  prefer  fiction  to  fact. 

We  punish  a  child  for  lying — some  mothers  do;  does 
the  child  ever  punish  the  mother  for  the  same  offense? 
And  yet  that  same  mother  will  tell  the  child  ten  lies  to 
the  child's  one.  "You  lied  to  me!  You  lied  to  me!"  I 
heard  a  bright  boy  with  tears  in  his  eyes  shout  to  his 
mother  on  her  return  the  morning  after  a  party  to  which 
she  assured  her  son  the  night  before  she  was  not  going. 
God's  mercy  on  such  a  mother!  Better  face  Lucifer  with 
a  hundred  lies  than  deceive  your  little  one  with  a  single 
falsehood. 

To  lie  to  your  children  is  the  height  of  baseness.  To 
stand  before  a  little  child  a  monster  of  deceit  posing  as 
the  embodiment  of  truth  and  integrity  makes  you  a  double 
dyed  offender,  it  cheats  yourself  and  cheats  the  child.  As 
a  rule  the  father  who  never  told  his  child  a  lie  will  get 
no  lie  from  the  child ;  the  mother  who  brings  up  her  daugh 
ters  on  household  lies  and  social  scandal  will  get  in  return 
as  she  gave. 

Four  hundred  years  ago  Falstaff  found  the  world 
greatly  given  to  lying,  and  among  liars  himself  the  chief. 
"Lord,  Lord"  he  says  "how  subject  we  old  men  are  to 
this  vice  of  lying!" 

Hamlet  assured  Guildenstern  that  playing  the  pipe  was 
as  easy  as  lying.  Yet  with  some  lying  comes  hard,  attended 
by  self-abhorrence  and  abasement,  while  with  others,  as 
with  mercy,  the  quality  of  lying  is  not  strained,  it  drop- 
peth  as  the  gentle  rain  from  heaven,  or  as  Parroles  express- 
eth  it,  there  are  some  that  will  lie  with  such  volubility 
that  you  would  think  truth  were  a  fool. 

Says  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  not  noted  himself  for 
truthfulness,  "It  is  evident  to  the  last  degree  that  the 
learned  societies  of  Europe  are  no  more  than  public  schools 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF   LYING  153 

of  falsehood ;  and  there  are  certainly  more  errors  propa 
gated  by  the  members  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  than 
are  to  be  found  among  a  whole  nation  of  savages." 

Lest  we  forget;  all  men  are  liars,  and  all  liars  shall 
have  their  part,  in  hades,  the  Bible  says,  and  many  believe 
the  Bible  to  be  true,  or  say  they  so  believe,  and  lie  when 
they  so  assert.  In  story  books  we  read  of  boys  who  always 
speak  the  truth  like  G  Washington.  * '  Father,  I  cannot  tell 
a  lie,  I  didn't  do  it."  But  in  real  life  boys  who  so  speak 
and  are  caught  at  it  are  seldom  seen. 

All  liars  shall  have  their  part — and  so  forth,  saith  the 
scriptures.  Is  this  true?  Is  there  such  a  lake,  and  if  so 
are  all  liars  consigned  thereunto  ?  If  such  be  the  case  then 
there  is  elsewhere  no  heaven  or  hell,  no  other  eternal  abode 
for  humanity,  for  hath  not  the  same  scriptures  declared 
that  all  men  are  liars  ? 

Satan,  methinks,  is  maligned  when  called  the  father 
of  lies,  else  alas!  where  can  he  store  us  all?  His  lake  of 
fire  and  brimstone  must  needs  find  place  somewhere  beyond 
the  cosmic  space  of  the  present  dispensation. 

As  the  world  progresses  lying  assumes  the  supremacy. 
It  is  not  now  an  incident,  but  has  become  an  every  day 
affair.  A  lie  is  no  longer  too  good  a  thing  to  be  wasted, 
but  is  used  for  common  purposes  every  day,  and  all  day. 
The  house  servant  uses  it,  glibly;  the  madam  and  her 
maids  use  it,  glibly,  and  the  daughters,  who  practise  it 
with  plentiful  giggling,  and  the  little  children  of  the  house 
hold,  to  whom  it  is  administered  with  their  mush  and 
milk  and  Sunday  school  lessons,  employ  it;  the  merchant, 
his  clerks  and  customers  use  it,  glibly;  lawyers,  doctors, 
and  divinity  preachers  find  it  their  chief  stock  in  trade; 
in  the  newspapers  we  read  little  else;  rulers  and  diplo 
mats  glory  in  their  machiavellism. 

There  were  Indian  tribes  on  Peace  river  and  the  Co 
lumbia,  famous  for  their  mendacity,  though  they  never 
could  quite  equal  white  men  in  this  accomplishment,  even 
though  the  Northwest  Company  gave  voice  to  their  factors 


154  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

and  servants,  "We  do  not  thank  any  of  our  people  for 
deceiving  the  Indians." 

No  longer  we  hear  the  exclamation,  Oh  Lord  how  this 
world  is  given  to  lying!  but  is  rather  Oh  Lord  can  I  not 
find  absolute  truth  anywhere? 

Are  novels  lies?  It  depends.  They  surely  are  not 
gospel  truths;  they  are  mostly  of  no  kind  of  truth  what 
soever.  My  grandfather  tolerated  the  malodorous  negro 
because  he  hated  slavery;  and  because  he  loved  the  black 
man  he  believed  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  to  be  true,  for  so  un 
truth  attractively  arrayed  in  prejudice  will  always  find 
believers. 

Just  where  to  draw  the  line  between  the  various  orders 
of  lies,  as  lies  social,  lies  political,  and  simple  plain  lying, 
that  is  the  question.  And  alas!  how  many  lies  does  love 
tell  whispered  into  the  ear  of  the  charmer. 

There  is  necessary  lying,  mean  lying,  and  noble  lying. 
Lying  is  a  vice;  yet  all  the  same  we  must  admit  that  the 
man  who  always  tells  the  truth  is  a  fool,  and  the  woman- 
impossible. 

Lying  achieves  its  greatest  victory  when  it  converts 
the  liar  into  believing  to  be  true  his  own  lies,  lied  so  often 
and  so  well  as  to  make  of  himself  a  convert  to  their  truth. 
'  *  In  the  which  women  still  give  the  lie  to  their  conscience. ' ' 

Think  truth  and  you  will  speak  truth,  for  as  a  man 
thinketh  in  his  heart  so  is  he. 

The  wise  man  profits  by  the  lies  of  others  rather  than 
by  his  own. 

The  habit-forming  precepts  inculcated  in  our  child 
hood  are  the  last  to  be  abandoned  as  the  chrysalis  of  the 
the  mind  emerges  from  its  native  aboriginal  shell  to  the 
broad  light  of  open  day. 

As  the  unchaste  woman  among  chaste  women  clamors 
most  loudly  in  defense  of  her  chastity,  so  the  notorious 
liar  is  sensitive  to  the  accusation,  and  resents  being  called 
a  liar,  whether  the  charge  laid  to  him  be  the  lie  circum 
stantial  or  the  lie  direct, 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF   LYING  155 

Like  money,  lies  are  of  economic  value  only  when  they 
will  pass  current. 

Religion  comes  in  for  its  share,  as  we  have  seen.  What 
precentage  of  all  that  was  taught  by  priest  or  propagandist 
two  or  three  centuries  ago,  two  or  three  millenniums  ago, 
is  true ;  how  much  of  what  is  taught  now  in  schools  and 
colleges,  or  preached  in  the  churches  will  stand  the  test 
of  truth  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  years  hence?  Christ 
condemned  lying,  though  for  himself  he  must  stand  ar 
raigned  until  he  makes  good  his  pretentions.  How  many 
preachers  believe  to  be  true  what  they  shout  so  lustily  from 
the  pulpit?  If  any  such  there  be  they  are  to  be  pitied 
for  their  ignorance  and  stupidity  and  promptly  pensioned. 

Next  to  lying,  praise  is  a  mighty  power  on  earth  and 
in  heaven.  Praise  is  the  primary  incentive  in  all  the 
walks  of  life,  and  in  the  after  life.  Animals  like  it,  babies 
like  it,  lusty  manhood  lives  for  it  and  the  soldier  dies 
for  it.  The  poet  sings  for  it,  the  sailor  swears  for  it. 
Deities  and  devils  are  overcome  by  it.  Praise  services 
are  held  in  the  churches,  and  concluded  with  the  hymn, 
"Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow."  Yet  in  prais 
ing  we  are  often  as  far  from  the  truth  as  in  condemning. 

After  all,  telling  one  lie  is  only  a  small  part  of  it;  it 
must  have  a  score  of  others  ready  to  support  it.  Once  ac 
quired  a  reputation  for  lying  and  it  is  difficult  to  establish 
the  truth,  as  the  boy  who  cried  "wolf!"  learned  to  his 
sorrow. 

How  many  are  the  maxims  of  truth  brought  forward 
which  tend  only  further  to  deceive. 

Truth  is  mighty  and  will  prevail, — sometimes;  at  other 
times  it  miserably  fails,  and  is  mighty  only  to  deceive; 

Truth  is  stranger  than  fiction, — yes,  because  fiction  is 
so  common. 

Why  do  we  read  a  novel  with  so  much  interest  amid 
heart-throbs  and  tears  knowing  that  it  is  an  airy  nothing, 
or  is  it  that  because  as  it  passes  into  our  brain  and  heart 
it  becomes  fact  as  the  bread  and  wine  of  the  eucharist 


156  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

became  the  veritable  body  and  blood  of  Christ  as  it  passes 
out  of  sight,  where  proof  cannot  follow  it? 

Half  of  the  space  in  newspapers  is  taken  up  by  lies, 
and  half  of  the  remainder  by  domestic  infelicities  and  high 
society  silliness,  in  attempts  at  wit  for  babes,  and  in  brutal 
sports  and  criminality.  Refreshing  indeed  will  be  the 
return  of  journalism  to  important  news  items  with  honest 
sensible  comment  and  the  claptrap  omitted. 

Advertising  is  the  prolific  source  of  streams  of  lies, 
any  and  all  sorts  of  advertising,  commercial,  professional, 
and  financial.  Barnum's  lies  about  the  greatest  show  on 
earth  brought  him  in  millions. 

The  quality  of  lying,  at  one  time  largely  in  the  hands 
of  diplomats  and  proselyters,  has  become  so  extended  and 
popularized  as  to  constitute,  like  laborism,  an  integral 
part  of  our  social  and  political  life. 

Is  falsehood  ever  profitable  to  a  man  in  public  life,  or 
to  a  political  party?  Some  men  can  lie  outrageously  and 
as  Mr  Pinchot  says  of  our  president,  get  away  with  it. 
Mountebanks  and  men  like  Barnum  sometimes  make  it 
pay.  But  as  a  rule  the  chronic  liar  is  a  failure.  Few 
men  succeed  permanently  by  falsehood.  He  who  uses  it- 
comes  to  a  bad  end.  There  is  no  political  success,  no  future, 
for  a  man  or  a  political  party  guilty  of  falsehood.  Frank 
truthfulness  is  wisdom  and  strength.  Pretense  and  con 
cealment  are  folly  and  weakness.  There  never  was  a  cause 
strong  enough,  or  good  enough,  to  sustain  the  injury  of 
lying  and  dishonesty  on  the  part  of  its  supporters  or  advo 
cates. 

Probably  Germany  in  time  of  war  offers  the  best  world 
illustration  of  a  lying  nation,  especially  when  an  English 
man  has  the  telling  of  it.  In  an  open  letter  to  George 
Brandes,  William  Archer  says:  "Is  it  possible  you  do 
not  see  that  this  war,  mad  and  monstrous  though  it  be, 
is  a  war  in  which  everything  turns  on  the  question  of 
right  and  wrong?  You  say  that  each  of  the  great  powers 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF   LYING  157 

declares  that  the  war  it  is  waging  is  a  war  of  defence. 
They  have  all  been  attacked ;  they  are  all  fighting  for  their 
existence.  For  all  of  them  murder  and  lies  are  necessary 
means  of  defence.  Then,  since  none  of  the  powers,  by 
their  own  showing,  wanted  war,  in  heaven's  name  let  them 
make  peace! 

"What  is  truth?  said  jesting  Pilate  and  took  up  an 
attitude  of  ironic  neutrality.  But  in  this  matter  there 
is  a  truth  and  there  is  a  falsehood;  and  the  merits  of  the 
present  situation,  as  of  the  whole  war,  depend  upon  the 
question,  Who  is  the  liar  ?  If  Germany  is  telling  the  truth, 
if  she  was  the  victim  of  an  unprovoked  attack  then  we, 
in  carrying  on  the  war,  are  merely  piling  crime  on  crime. 
Even  in  that  case  Germany  would  not  be  entirely  justified. 
Nothing  could  excuse  her  invasion  of  Belgium,  nothing 
could  cleanse  her  hands  of  the  blood  of  that  unhappy 
country.  But  many  of  her  other  proceedings  would  wear 
a  very  different  aspect.  Much  may  be  pardoned  to  a  man 
wantonly  attacked  and  fighting  for  his  life,  which  would 
be  unpardonable  in  one  who  was  himself  the  aggressor. 
Submarine  ruthlessness,  inidiscriminate  civilian-slaying, 
poison  gas  and  liquid  fire,  are  not  pretty  or  chivalrous 
methods  of  warfare;  but  a  man  set  upon  by  assassins  is 
not  to  be  severely  censured  if,  in  his  defense,  he  hits  below 
the  belt.  Even  he,  however,  is  not  entitled  to  bludgeon 
a  third  party,  an  innocent  passerby,  and  one,  moreover, 
whom  he  has  sworn  to  protect. 

"Can  you  deny,  in  the  first  place,  that  Germany  was 
the  one  country  in  the  world  which  made  a  deliberate  cult 
of  war?  The  brilliant  and,  as  it  seemed,  highly  profitable 
success  of  her  arms  between  1864  and  1871  was  the  joy 
and  pride  of  her  heart.  Her  public  places  were  crowded 
with  statues  of  swaggering  soldiers,  and  their  counter 
parts  in  flesh  and  blood  swaggered  through  every  depart 
ment  of  her  daily  life.  She  spent  vast  sums  in  organisa 
tion  and  preparation  for  war,  and  devoted  a  great  part 
of  her  technical  talent  and  industry  to  perfecting  the 


158  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

mechanism  of  destruction.  The  generation  of  1870  felt, 
and  transmitted  to  their  children  the  feeling,  that  life 
held  no  experience  so  splendid  as  that  of  a  series  of  swift, 
smashing  victories.  Her  philosophers  philosophised  in  the 
interests  of  the  military  state,  her  historians  wrote  their 
histories  to  bring  peace  and  the  love  of  peace  into  con 
tempt.  She  was  under  the  practically  autocratic  rule  of 
a  monarch  who  was  no  mere  official  head  of  the  military 
establishment,  but  who  loved  to  fancy  himself  as  an  actual 
warrior,  and  to  rattle  his  sabre,  both  literally  and  meta 
phorically,  on  every  possible  occasion.  Can  you  doubt  that 
the  theatrical  imagination  of  the  war  lord  was  constantly 
dallying  with  lure  of  what  his  hopeful  heir-apparent  gloat 
ingly  described  as  the  real  thing? 

"Another  characteristic  in  which  you  see  no  distinc 
tion  between  the  belligerent  nations  is  that  of  mendacity. 
They  all  declare  that  lies  are  necessary  means  of  defence. 
Let  us  look  into  this  a  little.  I  have  already  tried  to  show 
that  on  the  great  fundamental  questions  as  to  who  willed 
the  war,  the  German  government,  with  the  deliberate  in 
tention  of  deceiving  the  German  people,  has  lied  itself 
black  in  the  face.  Upon  that  great  fundamental  lie  we 
need  not  return.  But  the  question  of  minor  mendacity 
is  also  not  without  its  interest. 

"As  soon  as  war  breaks  out,  the  whole  world  becomes 
one  vast  lie-factory;  of  that  there  is  no  doubt.  The  air 
is  alive  with  lies,  quivering  like  motes  in  a  sunbeam. 
Many,  we  must  conclude,  are  deliberate  fictions;  some 
seem  to  come  into  existence  by  spontaneous  generation, 
without  any  assignable  parentage.  A  case  in  point  was 
that  amazing  myth  of  the  Russian  army  passing  through 
England  which  took  possession  of  the  English  mind  in 
the  autumn  of  1914.  All  the  neutral  capitals  are  teeming 
hot-beds  of  lies.  The  public  of  all  countries  is  insatiably 
hungry  for  news;  the  governments  of  all  countries  dole 
out  news  very  sparingly;  and  when  true  news  run  short, 
the  ingenious  journalist  supplies  its  place  with  false  news. 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF   LYING  159 

He  may  not  always  consciously  invent,  but  he  seizes  on 
and  magnifies  every  vague,  irresponsible  rumor,  though 
he  may  know  very  well  that  the  chances  are  a  hundred 
to  one  against  being  true.  If  you  tell  me  then  that  war 
is  a  terrible  breeder  both  of  mendacity  and  credulity,  I 
cordially  agree  with  you. 

"But  when  we  come  to  the  question  which  side  has 
systematically,  and  as  a  matter  of  deliberate  policy,  manu- 
factered  and  circulated  lies,  I  say  that  Germany  holds  an 
unapproachable  preeminence.  Here,  if  anywhere,  her 
genius  for  onganisation  is  beyond  praise.  Through  her 
official  and  her  underground  news-agencies,  she  has  fed 
the  neutral  world  with  lies  to  a  point  unprecedented  in 
history,  from  the  moment  when,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  she  circulated  a  full  report  of  a  speech  which  John 
Burns  did  not  deliver,  at  a  meeting  which  never  took 
place.  That  her  policy  has  been  in  some  measure  effective, 
is  proved  by  your  present  attitude.  In  spite  of  your 
keenly  critical  habit  of  thought,  a  good  many  German 
lies  have  apparently  crept  past  your  defences  and  en 
trenched  themselves  in  your  mind." 

Lest  I  should  be  deemed  delinquent  in  failing  to  give 
our  own  country  her  meed  of  mendacity,  we  may  read 
what  the  editor  of  the  Metropolitan  has  to  say  upon  the 
subject:  "The  charge  against  Mr  Wilson  is  that  he  has 
poisoned  the  wells  of  truth.  The  one  man  of  all  Ameri 
cans  who  ought  to  be  candor  incarnate  he  has  made  the 
written  word  of  the  president  of  the  United  States  a  laugh 
ing  stock  for  all  the  world.  No  amount  of  usefulness  in 
other  directions,  no  eleventh-hour  repentance  can  alter 
the  ignominy  which  he  has  put  upon  the  United  States, 
and  the  slur  that  he  has  cast  upon  democracy.  For  the 
president  cannot  abandon  truth  himself  without  impairing 
the  truthfulness  of  the  entire  nation.  Habit  blunts  the 
edge  of  our  sincerity.  In  the  beginning  we  were  amazed 
by  the  quickness  with  which  Mr  Wilson  ran  away  from 
his  promises.  After  a  time  the  great  public  comes  to 


160  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

regard  this  behavior  as  natural  and  hardly  blameworthy. 
The  blandishment  of  Mr  Wilson's  phrases  has  a  sort  of 
narcotic  influence  on  the  nation's  sense  of  right  and  wrong. 
And  like  most  opiates  it  undermines  not  only  the  charac 
ter  but  the  intelligence.  When  cleverly  worded  buncombe 
takes  such  hold  of  a  great  people  we  begin  to  despair  not 
only  of  ourselves  but  of  democracy. 

"Mr  Wilson's  recent  efforts  to  catch  the  progressive 
vote  by  forcing  through  progressive  legislation  have  tended 
to  draw  away  attention  from  the  depths  to  which  he  had 
sunk  in  his  foreign  policy.  We  have  to  thank  the  visit 
of  a  German  submarine  to  our  shores  for  calling  attention 
to  the  lamentable  weakness  of  the  president  and  awaken 
ing,  at  least  in  some  quarters,  the  national  self-respect. 
In  February,  1915,  Germany's  submarine  campaign  against 
merchant  vessels  was  announced,  and  in  the  same  month 
Mr  Wilson  warned  Germany  that  he  would  hold  her  to 
strict  accountability  for  the  loss  of  a  single  American  life 
through  submarine  attacks  on  unresisting  merchantmen. 
During  the  following  twelve  months  Germany  paid  no 
attention  to  this  warning  and  scores  of  American  lives 
were  lost.  Mr  Wilson  has  had  no  accounting  from  Ger 
many  and  he  has  taken  no  action  of  any  sort  whatsoever 
to  get  that  accounting.  The  American  lives  lost  through 
attacks  on  the  Gulflight,  the  Faldba,  the  Lusitania,  the 
Arabic,  the  Persia,  the  Ancona,  to  mention  only  the  most 
notable  cases,  remain  utterly  unavenged.  Mr  Wilson  has 
written  note  after  note,  using  all  sorts  of  strong  phrases, 
but  with  no  effect  whatsoever.  After  the  Lusitania,  he 
promised  to  omit  no  work  or  act  in  order  to  prevent  such 
assaults  on  American  lives.  Then  he  said  that  any  further 
sinking  would  be  regarded  as  a  distinctly  unfriendly  act. 
He  used  all  kinds  of  harsh  phrases,  but  he  could  not  make 
a  more  definite  statement  than  the  wording  of  the  original 
note  of  February,  1915.  And  no  man  could  possibly  have 
failed  more  deliberately  to  stand  by  those  words  than  Mr 
Wilson. 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF   LYING  161 

li  After  the  torpedoing  of  the  -Sussex  this  spring,  when 
it  appeared  impossible  that  Mr  Wilson  could  any  longer 
eat  his  words,  he  suddenly  abandoned  all  his  demands 
for  atonement  for  outrages  committed  and  avoided  action 
by  obtaining  a  promise  from  Germany  to  abandon  her 
existing  methods  of  submarine  warfare.  The  agility  and 
cleverness  of  this  evasion  would  hardly  have  satisfied  the 
country  a  year  earlier.  But  Mr  Wilson  had  so  bamboozled 
the  mob  by  his  indignant  phrases  and  his  close  escapes 
from  action  that  the  whole  issue  had  become  stale,  and 
the  country,  sick  of  being  wrought  up  to  successive  pitches 
of  excitement,  had  begun  to  think  that  perhaps  the  best 
thing  after  all  was  to  keep  out  of  war  at  all  costs.  This 
feeling  became  all  the  stronger  on  account  of  the  growing 
prosperity  which  it  would  have  been  a  pity  to  curtail.  It 
is  unfortunately  true  of  human  nature,  that  habit  will 
gradually  destroy  even  a  sense  of  shame.  So  it  came  about 
that  when,  after  the  Sussex  outrage,  Mr  Wilson  finally 
forsook  every  pledge  he  had  made  to  the  people  to  get 
atonement  for  American  lives,  and  accepted  instead  a 
promise  from  Germany  for  the  future,  his  followers 
thanked  heaven  the  war  was  again  averted  and  applauded 
Mr  Wilson's  great  diplomatic  victory.  But  that  victory 
was  not  merely  won  by  a  base  betrayal  of  American  rights ; 
it  was  not  even  a  victory  at  all.  Germany  made  a  promise 
which  she  has  not  kept,  and  Mr  Wilson  has  shut  his  eyes 
to  all  breaking  of  the  promise. 

( '  In  his  various  notes  on  the  submarine  issue  Mr  Wilson 
contradicted  himself  several  times  but  on  one  point  he 
made  himself  sufficiently  clear,  and  that  was  to  the  effect- 
that  submarine  warfare  against  merchant  vessels  could 
only  be  carried  on  lawfully  if  ships  were  warned  and 
searched  and  the  safety  of  the  passengers  and  crew  pro 
vided  for  before  any  sinking  took  place.  Those  were  the 
rules  which  Germany  finally  promised  to  observe  after 
the  Sussex  controversy  last  spring.  Those  rules  she  has 
not  observed.  Repeated  official  reports  have  been  made 


162  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

in  Great  Britain  showing  that  merchant  vessels,  both  allied 
and  neutral,  have  been  sunk  without  warning  and  that 
lives  have  been  lost  in  consequence.  And  yet  Mr  Wilson 
gave  out  this  statement  on  October  9th :  The  country  may 
rest  assured  that  the  German  government  will  be  held  to 
the  complete  fulfilment  of  its  promises  to  the  government 
of  the  United  States.  I  have  no  right  to  question  its 
willingness  to  fulfil  them.  This  statement  is  perhaps  the 
most  viciously  false  thing  that  Mr  Wilson  has  been  guilty 
of.  He  has  every  right  to  question  Germany's  willing 
ness  to  fulfil  her  promises.  The  reports  of  the  British 
government  have  been  publicly  made.  They  refer  not 
only  to  British  but  to  neutral  merchant  vessels  that  have 
been  sunk  without  warning.  Mr  Wilson  has  not  denied 
these  official  reports,  he  has  taken  no  steps  to  deny  or 
confirm  them ;  he  has  simply  ignored  them.  If  he  regarded 
them  as  he  reasonably  might,  as  coming  from  a  prejudiced 
source,  he  could  have  consulted  those  neutral  governments 
whose  ships  have  been  sunk.  He  has  simply  ignored  the 
reports  because  they  effectually  dispose  of  his  great  diplo 
matic  victory  over  Germany.  His  own  state  department 
indeed  has  itself  disposed  of  the  victory  by  assuring  the 
public  from  time  to  time  that  no  action  would  be  taken 
by  the  United  States  government  unless  American  lives 
were  lost.  Therefore,  it  is  plain  that  Mr  Wilson  does  not 
care  and  never  has  cared  whether  Germany  lived  up  to 
her  promises  so  long  as  the  immediate  danger  of  war  was 
removed.  He  has  deliberately  fooled  the  people  by  his 
claims  of  victory,  and  the  people  on  the  whole  have  wanted 
to  be  fooled.  In  reference  to  the  raid  of  the  U-53  off  Nan- 
tucket  the  New  York  Times  says  the  country  is  safe  in 
Mr  Wilson 's  hands  because  '  if  crimes  are  committed  against 
the  laws  of  nations  and  humanity  he  will  be  prompt  to 
act.'  The  Times  knows  that  Mr  Wilson  has  not  been 
prompt  to  act  when  such  crimes  have  been  committed,  and 
that  Mr  Wilson  will  not  be  prompt  to  act  in  the  future. 
It  knows  it  is  lying,  and  it  glories  in  the  lie  because  it 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF   LYING  163 

lias  now  become  possible  to  issue  the  worst  falsehoods 
without  even  incurring  ridicule. 

' '  We  need  not  again  go  over  the  long  series  of  tergiver 
sations  in  regard  to  Mexico  except  to  show  how  amazing 
is  the  capacity  for  swallowing  falsehoods  now  exhibited 
by  this  great  democracy.  Mr  Wilson  boasts  that  he  will 
never  interfere  with  another  nation  in  its  struggles  toward 
liberty.  Yet  he  interfered  to  throw  Huerta  out  of  Mexico, 
and  did  so  on  account  of  evidence  against  Huerta  that 
would  not  hang  a  cat  in  this  country.  And  at  the  very 
time  when  he  is  pealing  out  this  doctrine  of  non-interfer 
ence  he  is  actually  administering  the  affairs  of  Hayti  and 
San  Domingo.  Either  policy  might  be  right  or  wrong, 
but  the  man  who  declares  for  one  and  denounces  the  other 
while  carrying  out  both,  is  plainly  not  a  truthful  person. 
Even  more  blatant  is  the  lie  about  keeping  us  out  of  war 
with  Mexico  when  we  have  twice  within  a  period  of  two 
years  and  a  half  waged  war  in  Mexico.  It  would  not  be 
so  bad  if  only  Mr  Wilson  indulged  in  falsehoods  and 
broken  promises.  The  worst  part  of  the  business  is  that 
he  has  an  enormous  following  in  this  insidious  habit. 

"We  wish  indeed  that  Mr  Wilson's  chief  opponent  had 
himself  a  sturdier  sincerity.  It  will  be  entirely  the  fault 
of  Mr  Hughes  if  he  allows  Mr  Wilson  to  be  reflected.  His 
attack  has  been  feeble  and  misdirected.  Why  waste  time 
in  attacking  the  child  labor  law  and  the  eight  hour  law 
bill  because  they  are  imperfect  pieces  of  legislation?  We 
are  quite  willing  to  admit  the  hollowness  of  Mr  Wilson's 
progressive  professions.  He  never  raised  a  finger  to  help 
the  child  labor  bill  during  his  first  congress.  Nor  was  it 
until  the  importance  of  winning  the  progressive  vote  was 
borne  in  upon  him  that  he  urged  the  passage  of  the  bill. 
For  more  than  three  years  he  had  been  president  before 
he  discovered  that  society  was  in  favor  of  the  eight-hour 
day.  And  we  cannot  quarrel  with  Mr  Wilson's  critics 
when  they  maintain  that  he  never  would  have  discovered 
it  if  the  four  brotherhoods  had  not  held  a  pistol  at  his 


164  .  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

head.  We  have  never  regarded  Mr  Wilson  as  an  enlight 
ened  reformer,  and  we  do  not  regard  him  in  that  light 
now  just  because  he  has  pushed  through  progressive  legis 
lation  on  the  eve  of  election.  But  we  wish  that  Mr  Hughes 
would  avoid  attacking  the  legislation  and  get  back  to  the 
real  charge  against  Mr  Wilson,  which  is  that  he  has  low 
ered  the  standard  of  national  truth  and  national  honor 
as  no  other  man  in  high  office  has  ever  dared  to  lower  it 
before." 

We  might  add  that  Germany,  being  engaged  in  a  death 
struggle  had  some  excuse  for  lying;  the  president  of  the 
United  States  had  none  whatever.  But  this  was  among 
the  least  of  Woodrow's  accomplishments. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CHINA   AND    THE   UNITED    STATES 

AMONG  the  many  mistakes  made  by  those  who  at 
1\  various  times  have  taken  upon  themselves  to  manage 
our  affairs  our  treatment  of  China  has  not  been  one  of 
the  least.  Not  to  enumerate  the  pretensions  and  protesta 
tions  with  which  we  set  out  in  our  career  of  nation-making, 
and  which  we  have  failed  to  make  good,  as  teaching  heath 
endom  the  only  true  religion,  the  only  pure  morality,  the 
only  straight  and  narrow  path  to  honor  and  emoluments, 
to  civic  righteousness  and  political  integrity,  we  have  neg 
lected  to  avail  ourselves  of  the  greatest  prize  ever  held 
out  to  any  nation  since  the  coming  of  white  men  into  the 
west. 

Had  we  one  single  statesman  in  the  United  States  of 
sufficient  acumen  to  perceive  the  transcendent  importance 
of  our  relations  with  China,  and  of  power  and  patriotism 
enough  to  bring  the  matter  home  to  the  hearts  and  minds 
of  the  American  people,  there  might  now  be  accomplished 
what  would  prevent  in  the  future  a  race  conflict  beside 
which  the  present  trade  war  in  Europe  would  appear  as 
child's  play. 

If  Germany  had  had  our  opportunity  in  China  there 
would  have  been  no  bloody  war  in  Europe,  as  there  would 
then  have  been  room  for  expansion  without  fighting  for  it. 
And  now  let  Japan  and  Russia  have  their  way,  let  them 
take  over  China,  train  her  millions  in  warcraft  and  cen 
tralize  her  strength,  and  it  will  be  no  difficult  matter  for 
the  yellow  race  to  overwhelm  the  white  and  wipe  it  out. 
And  that  is  exactly  what  Japan  is  counting  on  when  they 

165 


166  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

say  Asia  for  the  Asiatics.  This  cry  which  they  have  raised 
of  a  bastard  Monroe  doctrine,  Asia  for  the  Asiatics,  means 
simply  Asia  for  the  Japanese.  Yet  Asia  alone  would  not 
satisfy  them;  like  Germany  they  want  the  world. 

A  Japanese  publicist,  speaking  recently  before  the 
Commonwealth  club  of  San  Francisco,  suggested  as  a  basis 
of  future  friendly  relations  between  the  United  States  and 
Japan  that  a  mutual  policy  of  hands  off  in  Asia  and 
America  be  adopted.  He  avowed  that  Japan  on  the  one 
hand  conceded  the  leadership  of  the  United  States  in  Amer 
ican  affairs.  He  insisted,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  power 
of  Japan  places  upon  her  the  burden  of  maintaining  and 
defending  Asia  from  exploitation  from  other  continents. 

While  the  Japanese  people  insist  that  in  their  relations 
with  America  they  must  prevent  racial  discrimination  for 
the  sake  of  preserving  their  own  national  pride,  it  is  con 
ceivable  that  they  might  trade  even  the  passage  of  an 
obnoxious  immigration  law  for  the  sake  of  drawing  the 
United  States  into  a  mutual  agreement  that  would  recog 
nize  Japanese  hegemony  in  Asia.  For  the  opportunities 
for  Japan  for  colonization  in  Asia  are  much  greater  than 
they  could  ever  possibly  have  in  America.  And  a  free 
hand  in  China  would  give  the  island  empire  an  opportunity 
for  growth  and  would  also  free  it  from  the  menace  of  pos 
sible  Chinese  attack.  Such  an  agreement,  however,  would 
invoice  a  trade  of  appraently  untradeable  things.  The 
United  States  would  have  to  abandon  the  open  door  in 
China  and  concede  to  Japan  the  privilege  of  excluding 
from  eastern  Asia  not  only  American  business  men  but 
also  American  teachers  and  American  missionaries.  It 
would  involve  a  limitation  of  our  stay  in  the  Philippines. 
On  the  part  of  the  Japanese  it  would  require  a  curbing 
of  their  instinct  for  migration  not  only  to  the  United 
States  but  also  to  Mexico  and  South  America  that  might 
greatly  strain  the  popularity  of  the  government.  They 
are  chafing  even  under  the  present  gentlemen's  agreement. 
It  might,  finally,  mean  that  Japan  would  expect  our  moral 


CHINA   AND    THE    UNITED    STATES        167 

backing,  if  not  material  support  in  her  inevitable  struggle 
with  Russia  in  Siberia  and  England  in  India. 

"It  is  doubtful,"  said  Chester  Rowell,  "whether  as 
yet  either  the  United  States  or  Japan  is  ready  to  concede 
mutual  exclusion  from  Asia  or  America.  The  new  reports 
of  extension  of  Japanese  influence  on  the  Asiatic  main 
land  will  probably  not  cause  any  change  of  at'titude 
on  the  part  of  the  United  States  government.  They  should, 
however,  strengthen  the  determination  of  the  American 
people  to  have  a  strong,  vigorous  American  policy  on  this 
continent.  It  would  be  almost  hopeless  for  this  govern 
ment  to  intervene  to  save  for  China  its  suzerainty  over 
the  vast  sparsely  -populated  territories  of  Manchuria  and 
Mongolia.  China  has  been  unable  so  far  to  rule  herself.  So 
she  has  little  chance  to  claim  dominion  over  adjacent  lands. 
Japan  is  succeeding,  where  China  has  failed,  at  imperial 
ism.  Moreover,  Japan  has  immediate  need  for  waste  land 
on  which  to  place  her  people.  China  as  yet  hardly  has  na 
tional  consciousness  to  know  what  her  own  needs  or  her  own 
capacities  are.  But  while  we  are  admiring  Japanese  spunk 
and  national  cooperation  and  aggressiveness,  we  should 
take  good  care  that  those  admirable  qualities  are  not  to 
be  turned  against  us,  and  they  surely  will  be  if  we  do 
not  cultivate  our  own  national  spirit.  That  is  what  we 
mean  by  Americanism.  It  does  not  mean  an ti- Germanism 
nor  anti-Briticism  nor  anti-Nipponism.  It  means  national 
organization  to  put  America  first  in  all  those  activities 
in  which  nations  rather  than  individuals  compete.  We 
must  not  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  America's  world 
competitor,  for  good  or  evil,  is  Japan.  By  strengthening 
mutual  respect  and  our  own  national  capacities,  we  shall 
make  sure  that  we  compete  for  good  rather  than  for  evil." 

This  is  as  it  should  be;  yet  it  is  well  for  us  always  to 
bear  in  mind  that  plausible  and  hypocritical  throughout, 
not  a  word  of  what  the  Japanese  say  may  be  relied  upon. 
The  stronger  they  assert  the  less  are  they  to  be  believed. 
As  Roosevelt  says  of  Woodrow  Wilson,  their  acts  do  not 


168  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

square  with  their  words,  and  their  words  do  not  square 
with  each  other.  For  an  opinion  as  to  what  may  be  ex 
pected  from  the  new  prime  minister  one  has  only  to  see 
his  face,  which  is  essentially  Asiatic  and  barbaric,  and 
withal  sinister.  As  to  mixing  races  with  Asiatics  the  idea 
is  abhorrent. 

The  cringing  attitude  hitherto  assumed  by  us  has  had 
the  worst  possible  effect  on  them.  In  attending  to  our 
own  business,  regulating  our  own  affairs,  and  making  our 
laws  to  suit  ourselves  they  claim  that  their  rights  and  their 
dignity  are  infringed,  which  sentiments  never  would  have 
arisen  in  their  minds  had  we  conducted  ourselves  as  we 
should  have  done. 

"China  has  a  friendly  feeling  for  you,"  says  Li  Yuan 
Hung,  the  new  president  of  China.  "China  wants  Ameri 
can  brains,  American  ability  and  American  friendship. 
China  needs  American  capital." 

This  message  was  brought  to  us  by  Julian  Arnold, 
commercial  attache  to  China  and  Japan,  who  says,  "We 
must  bring  the  United  States  in  all  its  varied  meanings 
to  the  awakening  people  of  China.  On  account  of  the 
relations  between  the  two  nations,  there  is  an  unparalleled 
opportunity  not  only  to  trade,  but  to  exert  the  best  influ 
ence  on  all  that  goes  to  make  life.  No  people  on  earth 
are  more  friendly  to  us  than  the  Chinese.  It  is  a  friend 
ship  which  we  should  extend  and  cultivate.  What  we 
have  done  and  are  doing  is  but  a  beginning.  The  next 
fifty  years  will  witness  changes  in  China  which  have  no 
counterpart  in  history.  America  is  in  a  position  to  help. 
It  can  be  the  greatest  friend  that  the  Chinese  have  known. 
It  is  particularly  appropriate  that  there  should  be  a  club 
here  in  San  Francisco  to  join  in  all  that  is  best  in  the 
coming  movement.  This  is  the  gateway  to  the  Orient,  the 
American  gateway.  Your  schools  should  pay  more  atten 
tion  to  China,  to  Chinese  history,  to  Chinese  development. 
The  Chinese  language  should  receive  attention.  It  is  one 
of  the  coming  world  languages.  Your  club  should  not 


CHINA   AND    THE    UNITED    STATES         169 

only  devote  itself  to  creating  a  better  understanding,  but 
it  should  be  foremost  in  preventing  any  misunderstand 
ings." 

China  wants  Americans  to  go  over  there.  They  are 
welcome  everywhere  as  the  best  friends  of  China  abroad. 
Americans  need  not  fear  Japanese  aggression  in  China, 
Arnold  assures  us.  The  Chinese  want  the  American  and 
will  give  him  the  preference,  always.  There  is  a  great 
market  in  China  for  cotton,  and  for  mining  agricultural 
electrical  and  manufacturing  machinery. 

Mr  Arnold  goes  on  to  say,  "Our  great  asset  in  China 
to-day  is  the  friendship  of  the  Chinese  people.  No  other 
people  on  the  face  of  the  earth  occupy  so  warm  a  place 
in  the  hearts  of  the  Chinese  as  do  the  people  of  this  country. 
From  the  president  down  to  the  humblest  peasant  this 
friendship  is  expressed  in  no  mistakable  terms  and  is  genu 
ine.  The  Chinese  people  appreciate  this  country's  kindly 
attitude  toward  theirs.  Our  staunch  advocacy  and  support 
of  the  open-door  policy  and  return  of  a  substantial  portion 
of  the  boxer  indemnity  were  acts  of  justice  for  which  the 
Chinese  people  are  deeply  grateful  to  the  United  States. 
China  now  asks  us  to  assist  her  in  developing  her  great 
resources. 

"What  are  we  doing  to  avail  ourselves  of  this  position 
of  advantage  which  we  occupy  in  China?  While  China's 
import  trade  has  increased  fourfold  in  the  last  twenty-five 
years  her  imports  from  the  United  States  have  not  as 
much  as  doubled  during  this  same  period ;  in  fact  our 
trade  with  China  during  the  past  ten  years  has  remained 
stationary.  It  is  true  that  what  we  have  lost  in  some  lines 
we  have  gained  in  others.  What  we  have  lost  in  trade  in 
piece  goods  and  flour  we  have  gained  in  kerosene  and 
steel  products.  The  Standard  Oil  company  has  greater 
interests  in  China  than  has  any  other  foreign  company. 
It  is  the  pioneer  of  big  modern  business  organization  there. 

"Although  the  customs  returns  of  the  trade  of  China 
with  the  United  States  during  the  past  decade  do  not  show 


170  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

substantial  increases  yet  in  many  ways  this  country's  trade 
and  prestige  have  gone  ahead  considerabty.  The  number 
of  people  from  the  United  States  in  business  with  China 
has  doubled  during  the  past  ten  years.  In  Shanghai  we 
have  today  a  community  of  nearly  1500  people  from  this 
country.  We  can  boast  of  an  American  chamber  of  com 
merce,  an  American  Asiatic  association,  an  American  bar 
association,  an  American  volunteer  company,  an  American 
woman's  club,  and  American  missionary  association,  and 
American  university  club  in  this  great  oriental  commer 
cial  metropolis.  These  organizations  are  thoroughly  awake 
and  conspicuously  active  in  advancing  United  States  inter 
ests  in  China.  Partially  through  the  labors  of  these  organ 
izations,  Congress  was  induced  during  the  present  session 
to  provide  for  funds  for  the  purchase  of  the  beautiful  site 
now  occupied  by  the  American  consulate  general,  the 
United  States  court  and  the  United  States  postoffice  in 
Shanghai. 

"A  great  mistake  made  by  manufacturing  men,  ex 
porters,  bankers,  and  capitalists  in  considering  China  as 
a  field  for  activity  is  their  failure  to  see  the  China  of 
ten  and  twenty  years  hence  rather  than  the  China  of 
today.  We  must  remember  that  China  is  potentially  one 
of  the  richest  countries  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  It  is 
China's  great  store  of  undeveloped  resources  which  should 
engage  our  attention.  This,  coupled  with  a  dense  popu 
lation  of  industrious,  peace-loving  people,  just  emerging 
from  a  middle  age  civilization,  just  at  the  dawn  of  a  mod 
ern  western  development,  makes  for  the  future  of  our  trade 
prospects.  China  is  still  an  agricultural  nation.  When 
her  tens  of  millions  of  industrial  people,  able  now  to  live 
on  a  few  dollars  a  month,  properly  embark  upon  an  in 
dustrial  development,  no  stretch  of  the  imagination  can 
conceive  of  the  possibilities  for  trade.  Japan  is  by  nature 
a  poor  country,  yet  modern  industrial  development  gives 
her  a  foreign  trade  eight  times  as  great  per  capita  as  that 
of  more  backward  China.  China's  population  is  six  times 


CHINA    AND    THE    UNITED    STATES         171 

that  of  Japan.  China's  wealth  of  natural  resources  is  hun 
dreds  of  times  greater  than  that  of  Japan.  Modern  knowl 
edge  is  coming  to  China,  and  coming  fast,  and  a  few  years 
hence  this  great  nation  will  embark  upon  a  development 
which  will  make  present-day,  trade  figures  seem  insignifi 
cant  in  comparison. 

"China  has  6,000  miles  of  railways.  She  needs  200,000 
miles.  China  has  1,000,000  spindles  and  5,000  looms.  She 
will  have  twenty  to  thirty  times  these  numbers  some  day 
probably  not  far  distant.  China  has  four  blast  furnaces. 
Her  rich  ore  deposits  can  provide  material  for  scores. 
China  imports  millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  coal,  yet  she 
possesses  a  wealth  of  coal  deposits  unequaled  elsewhere  in 
the  world.  Tens  of  thousands  of  dollars  are  now  invested 
in  coal,  iron,  zinc,  tin,  copper,  and  antimony  mines  in 
China.  A  few  years  hence  tens  and  hundreds  of  millions 
of  dollars  will  be  attracted  to  China's  great  mineral  wealth. 
Flour  mills,  oil  mills,  steel  works,  power  plants,  telephone, 
and  telegraph  installments,  textile  factories,  chemical 
works,  smelting  works,  water  works,  electric  lighting  plants, 
sugar  mills,  saw  mills,  shipbuilding  works,  paper  mills, 
match  factories,  glass  factories,  and  tanneries  are  spring 
ing  up,  indicating  the  transition  from  a  pastoral  to  an 
industrial  society. 

"The  one  great  essential  to  these  developments  is  cap 
ital.  If  native  Chinese  capital  is  depended  upon,  the  devel 
opments  in  these  directions  will  be  slow  indeed.  China 
needs  other  capital  than  her  own  and  she  knows  it.  With 
it  will  also  come  technical  skill  and  materials  from  other 
countries.  The  peoples  furnishing  the  capital  will  also 
furnish  the  technical  skill  and  the  materials.  Thus  trade 
follows  the  loan.  United  States  trade  in  China  has  lagged 
behind  that  of  other  nations  because  United  States  bank 
ers,  and  financiers  have  not  actively  interested  themselves 
in  China  loans.  British,  German,  French,  and  Japanese 
capital  has  gone  into  China  in  a  large  way  and  the  trade 


172  IN   THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

reflects  the  results  to  the  trade  of  these  investments  in 
China. 

"China  has  extended  an  especially  cordial  invitation 
and  continues  to  invite  United  States  capital  to  partici 
pate  in  her  developments,  yet  our  capital  seems  shy  of 
China.  Now  that  the  European  war  has  placed  the  United 
States  into  the  list  of  creditor  nations,  prepared  to  look 
abroad  for  investments  of  large  amounts  of  capital,  it  is 
time  that  the  opportunities  in  China  engage  her  serious 
attention,  more  especially  so  because  of  her  position  of 
vantage  which  she  occupies  there  by  virtue  of  the  friendly 
feeling  of  the  people  of  the  country  toward  America  and 
things  American. 

"A  new  China  is  rapidly  forcing  out  the  old.  We  are 
educating  in  our  colleges  and  universities  hundreds  of 
young  Chinese  each  year,  who  are  returning  to  their 
country  prepared  to  mold  into  the  new  China  the  lessons 
which  the  west  have  to  teach.  The  preceding  president 
made  the  fatal  mistake  of  leaving  out  of  consideration 
the  young  China.  He  failed  in  the  four  years  of  opportu 
nity  presented  to  him  because  he  did  not  avail  himself  of 
the  forces  in  his  own  country  making  for  progress.  He 
should  have  taught  the  young,  impetuous  supporters  of 
the  republic  self-control  and  wisdom  and  directed  their 
energies  and  aspirations  along  paths  of  progress.  Nation 
alism  and  love  of  country  have  long  been  dormant  in 
China.  They  are  awakening.  The  past  ten  years  have 
witnessed  great  strides  in  this  direction.  We  shall  make 
no  mistake  by  responding  whole  heartedly  now  to  the 
generous  invitation  extended  to  us  by  the  Chinese  people 
to  come  to  her  assistance  with  capital,  thought,  and  mate 
rials,  in  the  order  named.  The  Panama  canal  has  pulled 
our  Atlantic  ports  around  on  the  Pacific  in  our  trade  rela 
tions  with  China  and  it  is  on  the  Pacific  that  the  world 
is  to  witness  its  greatest  commercial  development  and 
expansion. ' ' 

Wu  Ting  Fang,  the  newly  appointed  foreign  minister 


CHINA   AND    THE    UNITED    STATES         173 

in  the  Chinese  cabinet,  who  was  for  several  years  Chinese 
minister  at  Washington,  is  a  man  of  exceptional  ability, 
a  warm  friend  of  the  United  States,  and  probably  more 
familiar  with  American  affairs  than  any  other  Chinese 
statesman. 

Thus  we  see  that  even  with  the  change  of  rulers  there  is 
no  change  in  their  loyalty;  their  friendship  remained  the 
same.  The  death  of  Yuan  Shih  Kai  brought  to  a  peaceful 
end  a  controversy  which  otherwise  might  have  involved 
years  of  civil  war  in  the  settling.  On  his  death  bed  Yuan 
expressed  regret  for  his  seizure  of  the  imperial  title,  an  act 
into  which  he  had  been  misled,  as  he  said,  by  his  advisers, 
both  Chinese  and  American. 

His  successor,  Lu  Yuan  Hung,  formerly  vice-president, 
is  regarded  as  a  thorough  republican,  and  is  believed  to  be 
satisfactory  to  all  the  provinces  recently  in  rebellion.  Some 
of  these  provinces  had  demanded  the  abdication  of  Yuan 
Shin-Kai  in  favor  of  Li  Yuan  Hung.  Four  of  them  sig 
nified  their  allegiance  to  the  government,  and  others  were 
to  follow.  Li  was  educated  in  Japan.  He  was  one  of 
the  leaders  of  the  successful  anti-Manchu  revolution  of 
1911. 

General  Feng  Kwo  Chang,  a  prominent  supporter  of 
president  Li  Yuan  Hung  was  elected  vice-president  of 
the  Chinese  republic  by  parliament.  He  was  governor  of 
Nanking  and  one  of  the  better  known  officers  of  the  Chi 
nese  military  service.  He  was  director  of  the  miltary 
council  on  the  Chinese  board  of  war  in  1907  and  director- 
in-chief  of  the  general  staff  in  1909. 

When  the  revolution  broke  out  against  the  Manchu 
dynasty  General  Feng  Kwo  Chang  was  in  command  of 
the  First  Imperial  army  at  Wuchang,  and  was  successful 
in  recapturing  Hanyang  from  the  revolutionaries  in  No 
vember,  1911.  For  this  he  was  rewarded  with  the  rank 
of  baron  of  the  second  class. 

Any  appeal  to  the  Wilson  administration  was  useless. 
Says  the  San  Francisco  Examiner: 


174  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

"It  gives  the  American  blood  a  thrill  to  read  that 
American  business  enterprise  has  started  to  secure  for 
this  country  the  ever-ripening  results  of  commercial  enter 
prise  in  China.  One  day  we  read  that  Americans  are  to 
build  thousands  of  miles  of  railroad  to  develop  the  re 
sources  of  the  long-sleeping  land.  The  next  day  we  are 
told  that  $100,000,000  of  American  money  is  to  take  hold 
of,  clean  up,  and  modernize  the  longest  canal  in  all  his 
tory,  the  grand  canal  of  China,  dating  hundreds  of  years 
before  the  Christian  era.  Here  is  the  enthusiastic  for- 
cast  of  what  this  latter  enterprise  means  to  San  Fran 
cisco,  to  the  United  States,  to  the  world.  Restoration  of 
the  grand  canal,  started  five  centuries  before  Christ,  so 
that  it  may  be  the  foremost  commercial  factor  in  the 
Orient.  Disappearance  of  the  old  junk  in  the  wake  of 
the  swift  motor  boat.  Substitution  of  scientific  methods 
of  labor  and  transportation,  of  horse  power  for  coolie 
power,  from  Peking  to  Shanghai.  Methodical  irrigation 
of  millions  of  acres  of  the  best  farm  land  in  the  Orient. 
The  American  versus  the  Jap  for  control  of  the  business 
of  China's  richest  provinces.  Opening  of  the  world  mar 
kets  to  the  products  of  more  persons  than  there  are  in  the 
whole  United  States. 

"Establishment  of  intimate  commercial  relations  be 
tween  the  Pacific  coast  of  the  United  States  and  China. 
Doesn't  it  make  the  heart  leap  to  feel  that  it  is  our  own 
Americans  who  are  thus  putting  in  their  energy  and  their 
capital  to  accomplish  industrial  and  commercial  wonders? 
But  after  they  have  put  in  their  energy,  their  brains,  their 
money,  after  they  have  risked  health  and  life  to  bring 
to  their  home  land  the  profits  of  trade  with  the  gorgeous 
east,  what  is  going  to  happen  to  the  energy,  the  money, 
the  lives  of  the  intrepid  men  who  venture  so  much? 
Chinese  bandits  are  these  forward-thinking  developers  and 
business  men  to  be  told  by  their  home  government  that 
they  can  expect  no  protection  for  their  investments,  their 

"At  the  first  sign  of  trouble  with  Russia,  or  Japan  or 


CHINA    AND    THE    UNITED    STATES         175 

lives  and  the  lives  of  their  wives  and  children?  Are  they 
to  be  robbed  and  murdered  and  their  dependent  women  and 
children  ravished  while  a  coward  home  government  tells 
them  it  is  too  proud  to  fight?  Are  they  to  be  told  to  run 
for  their  lives,  and  then  are  they  to  be  officially  sneered 
at  by  their  president  as  adventurers  and  exploiters  ?  Surely 
this  other  side  of  the  picture  does  not  give  the  American 
heart  a  thrill  or  stir  the  American  blood  to  cheers." 

And  this  in  regard  to  Japan's  grip  on  China:  "When 
Japanese  intrigue  procured  the  assassination  of  Juan  Shi- 
I£ai  and  his  son  it  was  predicted  that  within  a  short  time 
Japan  would  stir  up  a  local  disturbance  somewhere  in 
China,  and  seize  the  made-to-order  excuse  to  send  the  troops 
she  had  in  readiness  for  that  purpose  to  take  virtual  pos 
session  of  China.  It  has  all  happened  according  to  pro 
gramme.  Japanese  soldiers  have  been  attacked  by  Chinese 
at  Cheng  Chiatun.  As  an  indemnity  for  this  outrage 
Japan  demands  that  China  hand  over  the  government  of 
Inner  Mongolia,  a  territory  about  a  third  as  extensive  as 
the  United  States.  As  Japan  reports  that  ten  of  her  sol 
diers  were  killed  in  the  attack,  the  indemnity  she  demands 
for  each  one  is  64,000,000  acres.  Evidently  the  Japanese 
government  is  not  hampered  by  undue  modesty  in  esti 
mating  the  value  of  a  dead  Japanese  soldier. 

"We  suppose  it  is  waste  of  time  to  talk  sense  about 
this  Japanese  invasion  and  seizure  of  China.  Nothing  but 
an  immediate  display  of  firmness  by  our  government, 
coupled  with  a  plain  intimation  that  we  will  use  force, 
if  necessary,  to  make  good  our  obligation  to  maintain 
Chinese  integrity  and  the  existence  of  the  open  door  can 
possibly  stop  Japan's  meditated  seizure  of  China.  And 
one  might  as  well  expect  such  a  manly  policy  of  a  cotton 
tail  rabbit  as  to  expect  it  of  the  administration  now  in 
power.  The  Japanese  statesmen  make  no  secret  of  their 
conviction  that  Mr  Wilson  will  confine  his  utmost  daring 
to  writing  a  series  of  high-sounding  humanitarian  notes 
for  which  Japanese  statesmen  will  have  about  as  much 


176  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

regard  as  for  the  singing  of  a  canary  bird.  The  Japanese 
press  repeatedly  and  sneeringly  assert  that  Americans  will 
never  fight  under  any  provocation,  and  point  to  Mexico 
as  the  proof.  'They  are  not  at  all  backward  in  adding 
that  it  would  not  be  a  bad  thing  for  Japan  to  whip  the 
United  States  without  waiting  too  long  to  do  it.  The 
worst  of  it  is  that  this  Japanese  insolence  and  these  Japa 
nese  sneers  are  followed  up  by  action.  The  Japanese  are 
deliberately  proceeding  to  shut  the  United  States  out  of 
the  orient.  They  make  no  secret  of  an  alliance  with  Russia 
for  the  conquest  and  division  of  Asia.  And  they  make 
little  pretense  of  concealing  the  fact  that  Russia  and 
Japan  have  agreed  to  drive  our  trade  from  China.  And 
in  the  midst  of  all  this  intrigue  and  hostile  preparations 
in  the  very  shadow  of  these  thick  clouds  of  menace  and 
danger,  our  present  government  contents  itself  with  mak 
ing  pretty  little  speeches  about  the  beatitudes  and  the  hu 
manities.  God  help  us;  together  with  the  courage  of  our 
fathers  we  seem  also  to  have  lost  our  national  common 
sense. ' ' 

From  Peking  one  writes  later  that  China's  parliament 
is  setting  down  to  work  in  a  way  which  will  meet  with 
strong  American  approval,  especially  among  those  who 
regard  freedom  of  religion  as  an  essential  of  democracy. 
The  house  of  representatives  has  resolved  that  the  article 
inserted  into  the  constitution  during  the  presidency  of 
Yuan  Shih  Kai  making  Confucianism  in  effect  the  state 
religion  of  China  is  to  be  omitted.  Deletion  of  this  article 
restores  freedom  of  religion  in  China. 

Not  content  with  this,  a  bill  was  introduced  abolishing 
all  the  ceremonies  connected  with  the  worship  of  heaven 
and  the  worship  of  Confucius.  The  Chinese  progressives 
dethroned  Confucianism  as  a  state  religion  in  the  face  of 
considerable  opposition  on  the  part  of  Confucian  scholars, 
headed  by  Kang  Yu  Wei,  president  of  the  Confucian 
society.  Kang,  although  he  has  retired  from  politics  to 
devote  himself  exclusively  to  Confucian  research,  has  been 


CHINA   AND    THE    UNITED    STATES         177 

a  prominent  figure  in  Chinese  public  life,  since  the  July 
days  of  1898,  when,  with  Liang,  his  disciple,  he  inspired 
the  reform  decree  of  the  late  emperor,  Kung  Hsu.  Kang 
is  a  scholar  who  has  retained  many  of  the  ideals  of  old 
China,  while  his  pupil  Liang,  was  the  father  of  modern 
journalism  in  China  and  the  brain  force  to  the  movement 
which  began  in  Yunnan  at  the  beginning  of  last  winter, 
and  which  culminated  in  the  peaceful  succession  of  Li  to 
the  presidency.  His  last  pamphlet  translated  into  all  the 
important  modern  languages,  The  People's  Will,  has  been, 
distributed  all  over  the  world.  The  Chinese  printing 
presses  in  all  parts  of  the  country  worked  night  and  day 
to  supply  the  national  demand. 

Kang  Yu  Wei  sent  a  telegram  to  the  house  of  repre 
sentatives  protesting  against  the  elimination  of  the  article 
in  the  constitution  making  Confucianism  the  state  religion 
of  the  Chinese  people.  The  telegram  was  read  but  no  one 
supported  it.  Liang  did  not  publicly  announce  his  posi 
tion  during  the  present  discussion  for  the  reason  that  it  was 
not  necessary  for  him  to  take  open  issue  at  this  time  with 
his  former  friend  and  chief.  His  views,  however,  were 
well  known,  and  were  in  accord  with  the  decision  arrived 
at  by  the  members  of  parliament.  China's  toughest  prob 
lem  now  is  how  to  disband  the  army  raised  during  the 
revolution.  The  government,  hard  pressed  for  money,  will 
have  to  raise  at  least  $30,000,000  to  pay  off  the  800,000  men 
under  arms;  and  unpaid  soldiers  are  always  a  menace  in 
China. 

Coolies  regard  military  service  as  a  very  desirable  occu 
pation.  Once  enlisted  it  is  difficult  to  persuade  them  to 
retire.  They  riot  and  become  troublesome  if  an  attempt 
be  made  to  disband  them  without  liberal  payment.  The 
commanding  officers  are  frequently  as  mercenary  as  the 
soldiers.  When  the  government  fails  to  give  its  soldiers 
what  they  regard  as  adequate  pay,  the  troops  frequently 
become  bandits. 

Each  province  has  its  own  military  governor  and  a 


178  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

distinct  military  organization,  presumably  under  control 
of  the  Peking  authorities,  but  actually  independent  in  most 
cases.  Consequently,  the  Peking  government  is  forced  to 
deal  diplomatically  with  the  military  organizations  in  the 
provinces,  particularly  in  the  remote  ones. 

Newton  W.  Gilbert,  vice-governor-general  of  the  Philip 
pine  islands  bears  witness  as  follows:  "Our  chance  to 
secure  the  greatest  trade  in  the  world,  in  China,  has  been 
lost.  China  is  awake  and  wants  all  the  agricultural  and 
manufactured  products  that  it  can  get.  German  competi 
tion  is  gone ;  English  trade  is  crippled.  It  is  no  secret  that 
the  Chinese  distrust  Japanese  and  will  pay  one  dollar  for 
American  goods  rather  than  ninety  cents  for  the  Japanese 
commodity.  They  want  to  build  railroads  and  American 
bankers  intended  helping  them  with  a  loan.  But  the  whole 
project  was  discouraged  by  Wilson,  who,  however,  is  now 
characteristically  in  favor  of  it.  We  stood  idly  by.  Now 
we  talk  about  South  American  trade,  forgetting  that  the 
South  Americans  do  not  like  us,  while  the  Chinese  were 
kindly  disposed.  We  had  the  start  of  a  merchant  marine 
in  the  Pacific.  Now  the  Japs  control  the  Pacific  trade. 
They  give  seventy-five  per  cent  of  their  bottoms  to  Japanese 
shippers,  if  this  be  needed,  for  the  Japanese  government 
controls  the  shipping.  When  Wilson  was  elected,  capital 
ists,  who  had  during  the  two  years  previous  poured  into 
the  islands  $12,000,000,  took  the  democrats'  word  that  they 
would  scuttle  out  of  the  Philippines.  They  have  not  done 
so  and  they  will  not.  Lawyers  over  there  now  band  to 
gether  to  prevent  their  clients  from  suing  each  other,  suits 
being  ruinous  at  such  a  time.  We  need  the  islands.  We 
have  an  obligation  there  to  perform,  for  the  natives  did  not 
ask  us  to  drive  out  the  Spaniards.  We  need  a  depot  in  the 
Orient  and  a  military  post,  and  the  natives  themselves, 
without  executive  ability,  are  utterly  unable  to  manage 
their  own  affairs. 

"  Equally  serious  is  the  Japanese  situation.  The  six- 
power  loan  to  China,  which  Wilson  caused  to  fail,  was  most 


CHINA    AND    THE    UNITED    STATES         179 

emphatically  not  a  scheme  for  unfair  exploitation.  It  was 
the  one  hope  that  China  had  of  avoiding  the  sphere  project 
of  Japanese  domination.  Its  failure  was  a  blow  to  peace 
and  civilization.  Full  statements  of  this  have  been  pub 
lished  in  Japan.  How  has  President  Wilson  met  the  issue  ? 
By  concealing  the  facts,  in  the  attempt  to  put  off  the 
troublous  question. " 

Said  Judge  Dooling,  in  regard  to  the  wife  of  a  Chinese 
merchant  threatened  with  expulsion,  "I  cannot  but  feel 
that  she  has  not  been  accorded  that  fair  hearing  upon  her 
application  to  which  she  is  entitled  under  the  law." 

Thus  we  see  that  the  business  men  of  China  look  to  the 
United  States  for  their  future  market.  They  consider  this 
as  the  only  country  which  can  help  them,  and  which  has 
no  territorial  aspirations  in  China. 

The  development  plans  of  the  American  International 
corporation,  including  the  reopening  of  the  grand  canal 
and  the  building  of  railroads,  is  looked  upon  in  China  as 
one  of  the  most  potent  factors  for  the  furtherance  of 
friendly  relations  between  the  two  countries.  In  the  opin 
ion  of  C.  K.  Wong,  it  will  require  $100,000,000  to  put 
through  the  project. 

Japanese  influence  is  making  itself  aggressively  felt  in 
China.  The  Chinese  say  that  the  Japanese  cannot  hope  to 
compete  with  the  Americans  commercially,  but  that  they 
are  seeking  a  degree  of  political  control  that  will  enable 
them  to  exclude  all  outside  competition.  The  Japanese  and 
the  Russians,  they  say,  resent  the  recent  American  loan, 
while  the  British,  although  secretly  favoring  it,  are  not  in 
a  position  to  say  so  because  of  their  alliances. 

Said  a  wealthy  Chinese  merchant:  "The  Americans 
are  our  only  friends.  The  British  pretend  to  be ;  they  come 
to  us  with  the  Bible  in  one  hand,  while  with  the  other  hand 
they  compel  us  to  buy  their  opium." 

China  is  assuredly  waking  up.  Says  the  Peking  cor 
respondent  of  the  Shanghai  North  China  Daily  News  as 
quoted  in  the  Literary  Digest:  "The  president's  visit  to 


180  IN.  THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

Paotingfu  yesterday  is  suggestive  of  the  process  of  develop 
ment  slowly  but  surely  taking  place  in  China.  A  thousand 
students  graduated  at  the  military  academy  in  the  old 
capital  of  Chihli,  and  the  president  went  one  hundred 
miles  by  train  to  attend  the  graduating  exercises,  leaving 
at  9  A.  M.  and  returning  at  4  P.  M.  Therein  are  contained 
three  facts,  remarkable  because  they  are  indicative  of  a 
state  of  things  inconceivable  in  China  a  generation  ago. 
The  least  significant  fact  is  that  it  is  possible  to  journey  a 
hundred  miles  from  Peking  into  the  interior,  to  do  a  solid 
business  at  one's  destination,  and  return  to  the  capital,  all 
within  a  few  hours.  Next  comes  the  fact  that  one  thousand 
young  Chinese  of  the  better  classes  have  just  completed  a 
military  education  of  a  modern  character,  fitting  them  for 
commissioned  rank.  Thirdly,  the  ruler  of  the  state  calmly 
walks  in  and  out  of  his  palace,  drives  along  streets  in  his 
motor,  brushes  through  the  crowds  at  railway  stations, 
makes  a  popular  address  to  a  crowd  of  lads,  and  all  the 
time  is  doing  what  everybody  thinks  natural  and  proper. 
Truly,  the  times  are  changing.  This  trip  of  the  president 
is  indicative  of  nothing  less  than  a  revolution  of  which 
the  possibilities  are  equally  endless  and  changing." 

Professor  Alfred  Forke  of  Berkeley  says  that  wonderful 
business  possibilities  in  China  are  awaiting  the  coming  of 
young  Americans  who  can  speak  and  read  Chinese,  and 
lucrative  positions  are  to  be  had  almost  for  the  asking. 

Berkeley,  he  says,  is  fast  becoming  the  Mecca  for  young 
men  desirous  of  preparing  for  a  career  in  the  Orient,  in 
business,  engineering,  the  professions,  the  consular  or  cus 
tom  service,  and  missionary  work.  The  University  of 
California  is  one  of  the  two  American  universities  where 
students  can  learn  to  speak  and  read  Chinese,  and  its  fame 
has  reached  far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  United  States. 

The  steady  increasing  size  of  the  classes  in  Oriental 
languages  is  taken  as  a  sign  that  young  men  are  awakening 
to  the  great  opportunities  offered  in  the  Orient.  The  United 


CHINA   AND    THE    UNITED    STATES         181 

States  consular  service  in  the  past  has  offered  a  highly 
attractive  career  to  a  number  of  students. 

The  study  of  Chinese  also  opens  the  way  for  admission 
to  the  maritime  custom  service  of  the  republic.  Those  profi 
cient  in  Chinese  win  rapid  promotion  to  the  coveted  post  of 
commissioner  of  customs.  To  read  native  newspapers  and 
be  able  to  talk  to  natives  is  a  tremendous  asset  in  carrying 
on  business. 

Now  is  the  time  for  young  Americans  to  step  into  China, 
while  the  European  nations  are  forced  to  relinquish  much 
business  on  account  of  the  war.  Europe  has  no  money  to 
invest  at  present,  and  American  capital  and  brains  have 
the  greatest  opportunities  ever  offered  in  the  way  of  trade 
development. 

The  infamous  ten  years  opium  contract  with  England 
has  terminated,  and  China  is  now  free  from  the  tyranny 
of  the  drug,  and  is  determined  always  to  remain  free. 

It  is  said  that  a  new  treaty  between  the  United  States 
and  China,  designed  to  make  San  Francisco  the  greatest 
trade  port  in  the  world,  is  sought  by  the  Chinese  of  Amer 
ica.  In  cooperation  with  Wu  Ting  Fang,  who  now  is  sec 
retary  of  state  of  the  republic  of  China,  the  Chinese  Six 
Companies  here  have  launched  a  movement  to  bring  about 
better  commercial  relations  between  this  country  and  their 
own. 

Renewal  of  the  treaty  between  the  United  States  and 
China  which  expired  in  1904,  and  promotion  of  kindlier 
feelings  between  the  two  countries  is  the  ambition  of  Wu 
Ting  Fang  and  prominent  Chinese  in  San  Francisco.  It  is 
their  desire  that  the  United  States  take  advantage  of  the 
immense  trade  opportunities  offered  by  China. 

Chinese  business  interests  are  knocking  at  our  gates  for 
admission,  says  the  Six  Companies,  and  there  is  no  reason 
why  we  should  not  admit  them  before  the  war  in  Europe 
ends,  and  the  nations  abroad  give  them  welcome. 

There  was  no  cause,  there  is  no  excuse  for  the  expulsion 


182  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

of  the  Chinese.  Of  all  the  aliens  that  ever  came  to  America 
they  are  the  least  objectionable  and  the  most  useful.  Their 
good  qualities  are  imputed  to  them  as  faults :  their  industry 
is  slavishness;  their  thrift,  niggardliness;  their  economy, 
parsimony.  They  were  timid,  our  ways  being  strange  to 
them ;  they  were  inoffensive,  unretaliative  before  insult  and 
injury,  therefore  mean  and  cowardly. 

It  is  true  that  they  herded  in  places  apart,  as  did  the 
sewage  of  American  citizenship,  the  Russians,  Austrians, 
Scandinavians,  Portuguese,  Turks,  Greeks,  Finns,  and 
others  from  the  slums  of  Europe,  where  filth  and  vice  were 
far  greater  than  in  the  unique  Chinatowns  of  California. 
And  better  far  thus  to  herd  than  to  scatter  themselves 
throughout  white  residence  districts,  as  the  Japanese  delight 
in  doing,  to  the  disgust  of  the  inhabitants  and  the  ruination 
of  their  property  and  homes.  We  will  work  with  the 
Asiatics,  but  we  will  not  eat  with  them  nor  sleep  with  them. 

It  is  true  that  they  do  not  assimilate,  do  not  try  to 
proselyte  or  win  disciples  for  Buddha,  do  not  trouble  our 
wives  and  daughters,  do  not  love  to  agitate,  do  not  demand 
alleged  rights  vyider  treaties,  do  not  care  to  meddle  in  our 
politics,  or  run  the  government;  better  for  us  were  there 
more  like  them  in  these  respects. 

It  is  true  that  in  the  early  mining  days  some  of  them 
smoked  opium,  though  never  to  the  extent  alleged,  but  for 
which  idiosyncrasy  all  the  same  we  damned  them  daily. 
Then  of  their  own  accord  they  gave  it  up  almost  entirely, 
seeing  the  ill  effects  of  it  as  their  rulers  had  seen  long 
before,  fighting  its  introduction  into  their  country ;  so  that 
in  the  chief  cities  of  Christendom  more  of  the  stuff  was 
used  by  Europeans  than  by  Asiatics,  while  in  California 
with  the  Chinese  element  eliminated  the  importation  of  the 
divine  drug  was  greater  than  ever.  Few  Asiatics  at  present 
are  enslaved  by  its  use,  far  less  than  with  all  our  Keeley 
cures  there  are  white  men  wrecked  by  rum.  • 

It  was  in  1840  that  Great  Britain  perpetrated  that  in 
famous  act  of  forcing  opium  upon  the  Chinese,  not  with- 


CHINA   AND    THE    UNITED    STATES         183 

standing  the  emperor's  edict  of  1796  prohibiting  its  impor 
tation,  and  the  long  and  strenuous  efforts  of  the  imperial 
government  to  keep  away  the  poison  which  they  feared 
and  so  heartily  detested.  As  for  intemperance,  with  its 
loathsome  exhibitions,  I  have  lived  an  eye-witness  of  their 
habits  in  California  for  over  half  a  century,  and  I  have 
never  seen  a  Chinaman  drunk  on  the  street,  or  in  any  way 
disorderly,  or  standing  at  the  bar  of  a  drinking  saloon, 
where  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Americanized  toilers  con 
gregate  daily  for  intellectual  improvement  and  generous 
living.  I  have  never  seen  a  Chinaman  begging,  anywhere 
or  in  any  way,  while  one  constantly  encounters  on  the  street 
lusty  white  men  asking  for  money  with  which  to  buy 
food,  thus  in  these  and  other  ways  falling  below  in  man 
liness  and  decency  the  despised  Asiatic  of  the  cheaper 
wage. 

It  is  not  true  that  the  Chinese  are  filthy  in  their  habits, 
inefficient  in  their  work,  or  untrustworthy.  As  cooks, 
domestic  servants,  launderers,  and  for  orchard  and  vege 
table  garden  work,  they  have  no  superior.  They  are  dili 
gent,  respectful,  honest,  and  reliable,  which  can  be  truth 
fully  said  of  but  few  others. 

It  is  not  true  that  the  Chinese  take  work  from  better 
men ;  there  are  no  better  men  for  their  work.  The  assump 
tion  of  the  Irish  that  in  the  United  States  scheme  of  redemp 
tion  they  should  take  precedence  is  somewhat  ludicrous; 
the  Chinese  were  a  cultured  nation  while  yet  the  inhabitants 
of  the  emerald  isle  were  anthropophagi.  Nor  was  this 
republic  founded  especially  for  the  Celts,  to  make  places 
for  them  as  policemen,  labor  leaders,  and  drinking-shop 
politicians.  If  by  better  men  the  average  mechanic  was 
meant,  still  the  assertion  is  not  true,  for  the  average  me 
chanic  will  not  attempt  the  humbler  work  of  the  Asiatic 
at  any  price. 

We  cannot  reasonably  say  that  this  man  is  more  worthy 
of  our  consideration  than  the  other,  as  we  declare  that  all 
are  born  free  and  equal.  There  are  four  hundred  millions 


184  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

who  prefer  Chinese  paganism  to  German  Christianity; 
examine  the  record  and  you  will  find  that  the  former  live 
nearer  the  teachings  of  Christ  than  the  latter. 

The  Irishman  would  doubtless  claim  superiority  over 
the  Chinaman',  but  it  would  be  difficult  for  him  to  prove  it. 
He  is  a  better  agitator,  dissensionist,  and  demagogue,  but 
far  inferior  as  house  servant,  fruit-grower,  or  factory  oper 
ative,  and  as  between  the  two  I  prefer  in  my  family  a  good 
cook  to  an  agitator.  As  for  government  under  Irish  regime, 
nothing  could  be  worse,  unless  it  were  militaristic  rule  under 
the  Germans. 

It  is  not  true  that  there  was  danger  at  any  time  that 
the  Chinese  would  swarm  over  and  fill  this  country  like 
locusts,  as  was  said.  The  Japanese  might  do  this  but  not 
the  Chinese.  First,  it  is  against  their  nature  and  tradi 
tions;  second,  the  trip  was  too  expensive,  frequently  in 
volving  the  sale  or  mortagage  of  wife  and  children;  third, 
they  perforce  must  return;  even  if  dead  the  little  body 
must  be  wrapped  in  a  well-spiced  bundle  and  sent'  back 
to  China;  fourth,  the  thing  was  tried  and  proved  that 
when  wages  fell  below  a  certain  mark  the  tide  turned  and 
there  were  more  returning  than  coming. 

Long  before  the  Turanian  founding  of  the  Chinese 
nation  in  the  Yellow  River  valley,  and  while  western  Eu 
rope  was  inhabited  only  by  half-naked  savages,  Cathay 
cradled  a  sleepy  civilization  but  little  inferior  to  that  of 
Egypt.  The  people  were  rooted  to  their  homes  in  this 
life,  and  their  souls  guarded  by  their  gods  in  the  life  to 
come.  Joss  has  them  ever  in  his  safe  keeping.  There 
was  never  any  danger  of  the  Chinese  leaving  China,  they 
or  their  remains,  never  *to  return. 

They  came  hither  upon  the  formal  invitation  of  promi 
nent  San  Francisco  citizens  made  in  1849  through  a  dele 
gation  from  China,  assured  of  a  friendly  reception  and  fair 
treatment.  They  were  met  with  derision  and  treated  with 
contumely.  In  the  mines  their  camps  were  raided;  in  the 
legislature  they  were  illegally  taxed;  in  the  towns  they 


CHINA   AND    THE    UNITED    STATES         185 

were  stoned  by  the  boys,  who  pulled  them  about  by  their 
queue,  their  elders  smiling  approval.  Their  entire  sojourn 
in  this  land  of  liberty  and  equality  would  show  a  continu 
ous  record  of  injustice  and  cruelty  on  the  part  of  the  Amer 
ican  people  and  government. 

Treaties  made  in  1844  and  subsequently  were  faith 
fully  kept  by  them  but  were  broken  at  pleasure  by  the 
United  States.  It  is  so  easy  to  undo  the  philanthropic  with 
a  weaker  nation !  When  in  1784  the  Empress  of  China,  the 
first  American  vessel  to  visit  the  celestial  shore,  entered 
the  port  of  Canton,  captain  and  supercargo  were  received 
in  the  most  friendly  manner,  as  were  the  many  American 
ships  that  followed,  though  not  long  before  this  strangers 
had  been  driven  ruthlessly  away.  They  called  the  Ameri 
cans  "the  new  people, "  as  distinguished  from  the  English 
from  whom  the  United  States  had  so  lately  become  inde 
pendent.  Foreigners  at  that  time  were  not  allowed  to 
penetrate  the  interior;  they  were  called  barbarians,  and 
regarded  by  the  Chinese  as  far  less  civilized  than  them 
selves. 

During  our  civil  war,  at  the  request  of  Mr.  Burlingame, 
China  closed  her  ports  to  the  confederate  cruiser  Alabama, 
or  any  other  war  vessel  of  the  rebels,  thus  greatly  aiding 
our  cause.  Choosing  Burlingame  as  their  envoy  abroad 
shows  how  ready  they  were  to  Americanize  their  country. 

Commodore  Dewey  did  not  disdain  Chinese  service  at 
Manila  bay,  but  when  he  reached  New  York  the  heathen 
were  not  allowed  to  land.  They  might  fight  our  battles 
but  must  not  place  foot  upon  our  soil  without  some  celes 
tial  Perry  at  hand  to  force  them  entrance. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  from  first  to  last  China  has 
treated  us  with  courtesy  and  fairness,  which  we  have  re 
turned  with  injustice  and  insult. 

The  origin  and  agency  of  Chinese  expulsion  show  in 
true  however  unfavorable  light  the  quality  of  our  some 
what  demoralized  republicanism,  of  the  intelligence,  hon- 


186  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

esty,  integrity,  humanity,  and  justice  of  which  we  make 
boast,  as  administered  by  politicians,  newspapers,  and 
office-holders  all  along  the  line  up  to  the  highest  positions. 

Obsessed  by  evil  inspiration,  an  Irish  drayman  in  the 
San  Francisco  dunes  mounted  a  box  and  shouted  "The 
Chinese  must  go!''  Seeing  spoils  in  it,  demagogues,  sup 
ported  by  the  public  press,  took  up  the  cry,  which  rever 
berated  through  the  city,  through  the  state,  until  crossing 
the  continent  it  reached  congress,  where  it  was  safely  pre 
served  in  the  spoils-box  of  electioneering  assets. 

Wherefore  at  the  instigation  of  the  worst  element  in 
our  country  we  adopt  the  pagan  policy  which  we  so  lately 
shouted  down  at  the  door  of  pagan  Asia. 

All  honor  to  Dennis!  the  grandest  Irishman  since  St 
Patrick;  Dennis  with  his  dinner  pail  and  dray  upon  the 
classic  sands  of  Market  street;  he  shook  with  his  voice  the 
foundations  of  the  republic,  so  firmly  established  by  Ham 
ilton,  and  Jefferson,  and  Washington,  stirring  to  frenzy 
the  politicians,  from  policeman  to  president,  because  of 
pap  and  patronage! 

The  Chinaman  had  no  champion ;  his  wrongs  were  never 
recited;  the  lies  that  were  told  of  him  fell  on  listless  ears 
and  were  never  refuted.  So  that  now  it  is  the  vague  but 
general  impression  throughout  the  land  that  the  Chinese 
are  an  undesirable  factor  in  the  economic  interests  of  the 
country. 

Of  course  the  solons  at  the  capital  knew,  the  president 
knew,  all  their  henchmen  and  whippers-in  knew  well 
enough  the  true  and  only  cause  of  his  offending;  this  celes 
tial  had  no  vote. 

Though  respectable  and  responsible,  his  was  an  off  color. 
For  so  discriminating  had  become  our  perceptions  in  pass 
ing  upon  material  fit  for  citizenship  that  we  could  deter 
mine  it  by  the  tint  of  the  skin;  anything  white  or  black 
would  do,  but  yellow  was  taboo. 

Yet  there  was  a  distinction  even  in  the  yellow;  the 
Japanese,  a  far  worse  element  than  the  Chinese,  were  per- 


CHINA   AND    THE    UNITED    STATES         187 

mitted  to  enter  freely  long  after  the  latter  had  been  pro 
hibited.  There  was,  alas!  no  Dennis  on  the  sand-hills  then 
to  raise  the  cry,  The  Japanese  must  go! 

Here  is  the  grandest  of  those  lost  opportunities  which 
fate  held  out  to  the  makers  of  this  republic,  an  opportunity 
to  employ  our  young  wisdom  in  resuscitating  and  redeem 
ing  for  progressive  humanity  the  oldest  and  largest  of 
earth's  nations,  an  opportunity  that  any  European  power 
would  have  most  effectually  embraced.  Think  of  it;  as  I 
said  before,  if  the  chance  had  been  Germany 's,  there  would 
never  have  occurred  this  beastly  butchery  of  humanity  in 
Europe,  however  doleful  the  consequences  might  have  been 
to  China. 

Lost  through  our  lovers  of  votes,  the  greatest  oppor 
tunity  of  all  for  doing  good,  for  doing  the  greatest  good 
to  ourselves  and  to  others,  to  an  unwieldy  mass  of  par 
alyzed  humanity  four  times  the  present  population  of  the 
United  States  crowded  into  an  area  two-thirds  as  large, — 
one-fourth  of  all  the  people  in  the  world,  and  of  a  nature 
so  apathetic  that  all  the  proddings  of  little  Japan  have 
thus  far  failed  to  prick  them  into  manliness. 

We  had  simply  to  remember  our  precept  that  these 
were  men,  not  apes,  equal  to  us  in  creation,  equal  to  any 
in  regard  to  our  obligations;  or  if  to  our  diluted  citizen 
ship  this  sentiment  had  lost  force,  one  can  but  consider 
how  easily  our  sphere  of  influence  might  have  been  ex 
tended  over  all  China,  and  what  that  influence  would  be 
worth  to  us,  at  present  in  money,  and  later  in  power, — 
when  the  strength  of  the  nation  becomes  centralized,  and 
disciplined  under  competent  leadership  to  meet  the  great 
issues  and  conflicts  of  the  world. 

Assimilation,  amalgamation,  as  a  scheme  at  once  benefi 
cent  and  profitable  has  not  proved  always  and  altogether 
befitting.  In  a  new  country  with  vast  areas  of  untenanted 
lands,  a  good  quality  of  incomers  to  form  partnership  with 
the  original  stock,  under  well  considered  restrictions,  might 


188  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

have  proved  propitious;  but  as  a  dumping-ground  for  the 
refuse  of  effete  nations  the  intermixture  is  fatal  to  the 
welfare  of  a  progressive  people. 

In  our  own  case  the  custom  as  applied  during  the  last 
half-century  has  destroyed  representative  democracy  as 
originally  existing,  and  blotted  out  any  possibility  of  a 
pure  Anglo-American  race  in  the  states  united  by  the 
founders  of  the  republic. 

The  doctrine  of  assimilation  sounded  pleasantly  in  Puri 
tan  ears.  It  was  beautiful  in  theory,  but  theories  and 
ideals  are  not  everlasting  in  practice.  Up  to  a  certain  point 
the  free  admission  of  aliens  was  profitable,  but  with  the 
incoming  age  of  graft  they  only  added  to  the  general  cor 
ruption.  A  factory  for  turning  out  ready-made  citizens, 
where  native  land  and  love  of  country  are  lacking,  does 
not  show  the  best  results. 

Of  every  thousand  inhabitants  in  the  United  States,  351 
— they  or  their  parents — are  foreign  born ;  107  are  negroes ; 
while  less  than  half  of  the  remainder  are  descendants  of 
the  four  million  colonists  of  1790.  In  Massachusetts,  the 
keystone  of  Yankeedom,  there  were  in  1910,  117,000  Rus 
sians,  89,000  Italians,  48,000  Scandinavians,  35,000  Aus- 
trians,  30,000  Germans,  26,000  Portuguese,  16,000  Turks, 
11,000  Greeks,  10,000  Finns,  with  100,000  aliens  still,  com 
ing  in  every  year.  Of  whites  of  native  parentage  in  New 
York  city  there  are  only  19.3  per  cent,  and  in  Chicago 
20.4  per  cent.  Of  the  13,000,000  aliens  arriving  since  1900, 
over  half  of  them  were  Catholics. 

And  now  that  every  able  bodied  man  in  Europe  is  re 
quired  for  the  butcher,  future  immigration  from  that  quar 
ter  is  not  likely  to  improve  in  quality. 

There  are  communities  in  the  south  where  three-fourths 
of  the  population  are  negroes,  and  there  are  midcontinent 
communities  of  alien  dolts,  many  of  whom  cannot  speak 
the  English  language,  and  who  have  as  proper  conception 
of  American  institutions  and  ideals  as  so  many  mules,  yet 
all  fit  and  proper  for  American  citizenship. 


CHINA   AND    THE    UNITED    STATES         189 

Obviously  another  of  our  lost  opportunities;  for,  as 
before  intimated,  had  we  economized  our  lands  and  limited 
our  citizenship  we  might  now  present  in  place  of  this  un 
happy  hybridism  the  finest  race  on  earth,  with  public 
wealth  enough  to  pay  all  the  expenses  of  government  to 
the  end  of  time. 

Of  a  truth  we  ought  not  to  curse  the  Chinaman  for 
declining  American  citizenship  but  rather  to  bless  him,  to 
bless  his  coppery  skin,  his  eyes  aslant  and  his  worshipful 
pigtail;  his  clattering  feet,  and  swinging  market  basket, 
and  his  sanctimonious  Joss  before  whom  he  prays  to  his 
thirty  thousand  devils.  Let  us  thank  him  that  he  does 
not  envy  our  Irish  rulers,  does  not  want  to  be  congress 
man,  or  run  labor  unions,  or  bribe  supervisors,  or  hold 
nihilistic  seances,  but  just  to  do  faithful,  humble  work 
and  take  his  small  earnings  back  to  China  to  make  happy 
the  diminutive  slave- wife  and  little  demijohns  forever 
after;  or  should  fateful  death  overtake  him  to  have  his 
little  bundle  of  aromatic  bones  returned  over-sea  to  their 
original  dust,  carefully  guarded  for  the  Stygian  journey, 
lest  peradventure  there  should  set  in  amalgamation  with 
those  of  the  Christian  devils. 

In  the  early  gold-digging  days,  with  the  criminal  ele 
ment  from  every  nation  we  absorbed  England's  Australian 
convicts,  with  such  of  Russia 's  Siberian  population  as  could 
make  their  escape,  amalgamating  these  with  the  rest,  all 
of  them  who  were  not  hanged  or  driven  away  by  the  vigi 
lance  committee.  And  never  a  voice  from  Ireland  on  the 
classic  sand-hills  "The  Sydney  ducks  must  go!" 

Assimilation !  Something  of  a  fiasco  after  all  is  it  not  ? 
We  begin  by  assimilating  and  end  by  being  assimilated. 
We  begin  by  absorbing  low-grade  people  from  Europe  and 
end  in  being  absorbed  by  them.  We  pass  out  freely  our 
naturalization  papers  until  we  bring  upon  ourselves  dena 
tionalization. 

There  is  no  longer  an  Anglo-American  republic;  the 
race  of  the  founders  is  fast  disappearing,  and  we  have  only 


190  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

to  make  the  best  of  the  heterogeneous  humanity  that  has 
taken  its  place. 

Assimilation,  how  glorious !  Imported  citizens,  patriots, 
lovers  of  country,  plentiful  and  cheap.  Before  the  present 
inhuman  conflict  brought  out  in  bloody  relief  the  true  mind 
and  character  of  the  Teutonic  race  we  regarded  German 
immigrants  as  among  the  best  material  for  American  citi 
zenship,  and  we  must  still  differentiate  between  the  loyal 
Americanized  Germans  who,  they  or  their  ancestors,  were 
among  the  builders  of  the  nation,  and  some  of  the  later 
hyphenates  who  are  false  to  their  sworn  allegiance,  traitors 
to  the  land  of  their  adoption,  bomb-planters  and  incen 
diaries,  worthy  disciples  of  the  kaiser. 

We  may  further  note  the  similarity  in  the  methods 
of  the  murderous  German  sympathizers  and  the  murderous 
labor  leaders  in  attaining  their  ends. 

There  are  Germans  who  would  fight  for  the  land  of 
their  adoption,  just  as  Anglo-Americans  would  fight  Eng 
land  again  if  necessary;  there  are  many  Germans  among 
the  later  hyphenated  who  would  not.  As  to  the  Germans 
who  had  developed  under  militarism  and  kaiser  kultur, 
they  are  of  a  different  order  of  humanity  from  anything 
elsewhere  existing.  This  they  themselves  claim,  and  we 
willingly  concede  it.  The  kaiser  is  their  god,  and  a  very 
bad  god  too ;  as  unscrupulous  as  a  medieval  robber  baron ; 
and  as  blood-thirsty  as  a  pirate  of  the  Spanish  main ;  their 
ideals  are  hellish,  their  acts  the  worst  conceivable  by  man. 
They  love  murder  for  murder's  sake,  cruelty  is  a  pastime 
and  pleasure,  and  terrorism  the  first  principle  of  their 
war  tactics. 

And  yet  Berlin  journalists  wonder  why  Germans  are 
not  loved!  The  question  itself  shows  a  dementia,  shows  a 
total  absence  of  any  moral  sense.  The  Germans  are  a  race 
apart,  just  as  hyenas  are  a  class  by  themselves,  and  might 
as  well  wonder  why  they  are  not  loved.  To  tell  the  Ger 
mans  why  they  are  not  loved,  why  they  are  hated  and 
abhorred  by  all  nations  is  not  a  difficult  task.  Does  civil- 


CHINA   AND    THE    UNITED    STATES         191 

ized  humanity  love  savage  beasts  or  poisonous  reptiles, 
whether  in  the  form  of  divine  kaiser  or  unified  professor? 
Do  men  of  honor  love  lies  and  trickery,  foresworn  faith 
and  broken  promises?  Do  men  of  morals  love  the  ethics 
of  brute  force,  void  of  conscience,  void  of  humanity,  void 
of  any  sense  of  right  and  wrong?  Look  at  Belgium,  Oh 
tearful  Teutons !  and  consider  the  Lusitania;  consider  your 
butcheries  of  defenceless  men  women  and  children,  your 
rapes  and  robberies,  you  wanton  cruelty  and  injustice  at 
every  hand,  then  ask  not  why  all  nations  hate  Germany! 
And  how  about  entering  a  neutral  nation,  and  through  a 
contemptible  system  of  espionage,  bomb-planting,  and  as 
sassination  yield  up  your  last  scrap  of  tattered  honor  ? 

Learned  doctors  and  professors,  whom  we  have  hith 
erto  accredited  with  deep  thought  and  sound  logic,  are 
apparently  as  enslaved  by  their  Teutonic  superstitions  as 
the  ignorant  soldier  in  the  trenches  fighting  for  he  knows 
not  what.  Or  is  it  that  they  must  hold  with  their  kaiser 
or  cease  to  be  Germans  and  quit  the  country  ?  At  all  events, 
whatever  it  is,  whether  stupidity  or  hypocrisy,  it  is  not  a 
proper  element  of  progress,  nor  yet  a  fertile  soil  in  which 
to  plant  the  true  beautiful  and  good. 

It  is  not  alone  the  cruelty,  brutality,  and  injustice  of 
the  Germans  that  shock  the  civilized  world,  but  that  the 
learning  and  refinement  of  this  great  nation  should  be  given 
up  to  defend,  or  even  to  praise  such  fiendishness  shows 
an  astounding  depravity  such  as  the  world  never  could 
have  imagined  and  can  never  forget. 

Germany,  these  wiseacres  are  wont  to  say,  has  of  late 
contributed  more  than  any  other  nation  to  the  progress 
and  enlightenment  of  the  world.  Whether  this  be  true 
or  not  they  might  correctly  add  that  she  has  also  contrib 
uted  more  to  the  villainies  and  brutalities  of  the  world 
than  were  ever  dreamed  of  as  possible  since  Christ  was 
here  preaching  peace.  We  can  well  spare  Germany  from 
the  family  of  nations,  with  all  the  good  she  has  done,  if 


192  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

she  will  take  with  her  the  wrongs  she  has  committed  against 
the  souls  as  well  as  the  bodies  of  men. 

The  truth  is  that  a  large  percentage  of  the  hyphenated 
in  America,  Germans  and  others,  never  have  really  amal 
gamated  and  never  will,  the  amalgam  adhering  only  during 
fair  weather  or  when  profitable. 

Time  will  test  further  the  loyalty  of  Americanized 
aliens.  As  to  the  dependence  which  may  be  placed  upon 
union  labor,  and  the  devotion  of  its  members  to  the  country 
they  live  in  and  from  which  they  derive  support,  we  have 
an  example  in  England,  where  they  not  only  refuse  to 
fight,  but  resort  to  strikes  for  less  work  and  more  pay,  thus 
crippling  British  arms  in  the  nation's  dire  extremity. 
Again,  to  avoid  conscription  necessary  to  save  their  own 
dear  native  isle  from  the  destroyer,  Irishmen  are  fleeing 
to  America,  though  the  kaiser  promises  them  independence 
to  spite  England  as  soon  as  he  has  made  their  country  like 
Belgium.  When  conscription  comes  to  America  will  they 
and  their  brother  hyphenates  fly  back  to  their  potato  patch, 
or  hasten  farther  west  to  China  ? 

Other  good  qualities  attend  the  Chinese  worker  in  Cali 
fornia.  It  was  not  the  lowest  grade  of  laborers  that  came 
hither;  the  infamous  coolie  system  never  obtained  in  the 
United  States.  John  is  no  time-server,  this  little  fellow 
from  the  celestial  hills,  nor  pauper.  He  does  not  demand 
like  the  children  of  Nippon  by  virtue  of  their  high  heath 
enism  the  best  of  everything  and  all  for  nothing.  He  does 
not  crowd  out  the  white  residents  from  the  better  streets 
nor  force  himself  into  public  schools ;  he  requires  but  little 
hospital  service,  as  he  has  his  own  doctor  and  appliances. 
He  is  of  less  expense  to  the  government  than  any  other 
alien.  Even  in  court  short  work  is  made  of  his  case,  as 
he  is  either  quickly  hanged  or  sent  to  prison  to  work  his 
way  through. 

Even  to-day,  after  sixty  years  of  bad  treatment  on  our 
part,  China  still  holds  open  her  door  and  invites  us  to 


CHINA   AND    THE    UNITED    STATES         193 

enter  and  take  possession  industrially.  "Others  will  do 
so  if  you  do  not,"  says  Minister  Chow  Tzu  Chi,  "but  we 
prefer  Americans."  How  can  we  refuse?  Yet  how  can 
we  accept  while  driving  these  worthy  people  from  our 
shores,  thus  adopting  the  barbarism  which  we  forced  them 
to  discard  half  a  century  ago. 

The  Japanese  are  quite  a  different  affair.  Germany 
and  Japan  are  predatory  nations;  one  the  world's  exem 
plar  in  blood-lust,  the  other  an  apt  imitator;  one  old  in 
sin  and  civilization,  the  other  still  instinctively  wild  and 
immature.  In  the  absence  of  any  ethical  conception  the 
morals  of  both,  or  what  stands  for  morals,  are  founded  on 
force,  brute  force  the  only  measure  of  right  and  wrong, 
of  which  militarism  is  the  essence  and  exponent.  Under 
such  tutelage,  and  with  the  skill  therefrom  acquired,  Japan 
call  well  afford  to  reiterate  expressions  of  friendship  for 
the  United  States,  as  no  nation  ever  before  played  so  com 
pletely  as  ours  into  the  hands  of  a  relentless  competitor 
and  natural  and  unscruplous  rival. 

Then  why  is  it,  or  rather  why  was  it  in  the  first  in 
stance,  before  the  concocting  of  an  obstructive  treaty,  that 
after  excluding  the  Chinese,  the  Japanese,  the  more  dis 
turbing  and  unwelcome  element  were  admitted?  Because, 
first,  there  was  no  exile  of  Erin  on  the  San  Francisco 
sand-lot  to  sound  the  tocsin  of  the  demagogues  so  succes- 
ful  as  applied  to  the  Chinese?  Then  we  were  amused  and 
pleased  to  see  how  ready  the  little  pagans  were  to  throw 
off  the  outlandish  toggeries  of  Buddha  and  put  on  the 
paraphernalia  of  our  civilization.  And  they  were  so  polite 
and  plausible  withal,  so  sublime  in  their  pretensions,  so 
artful  in  their  impudence,  which  after  all  was  but  the  im 
pudence  of  ignorance,  permitting  us  to  profit  a  little  by 
them  while  they  profited  much  more  by  us.  Moreover, 
their  arrogance  and  adaptability  were  fortified  with  guns, 
which  they  learned  to  shoot,  never  the  while  being  con 
cerned  about  death,  a  matter  they  left  to  the  gods.  Add 


194  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

to  this  our  indifference,  the  inattention  of  the  disciples  of 
Dennis,  and  the  alertness  of  the  Japanese,  and  we  have 
the  situation  pretty  fairly  before  us. 

Surrounded  by  the  influences  into  which  young  Japan 
is  unfolding,  where  as  Kipling  says  "  there  is  no  crime, 
no  cruelty,  no  abomination  that  the  mind  of  man  can 
conceive  which  the  German  has  not  perpetrated,"  to  what 
heights  of  greatness  may  the  Nipponese  not  attain  in  an 
other  half  century? 

The  hopes  and  expectations  of  the  Germans  are  vested 
in  a  Christian  kaiser,  those  of  the  Japanese  in  a  pagan 
mikado,  the  one  a  necessarian  the  other  a  faltalist,  with 
little  to  choose  between  them;  both  are  special  envoys  of 
the  Creator,  and  endowed  with  his  wisdom  and  goodness. 
The  arrogance  and  impudence  of  the  pagan  is  exceeded 
only  by  the  stupendous  pretensions  of  the  Christian.  The 
individual  subject  is  as  potter's  clay  in  the  hands  of  these 
rulers.  Thus  may  be  seen  at  a  glance  the  prostitution  of 
Christian  ideals  and  the  paganism  of  kaiser  kultur. 

Predatory  peoples  are  pirates;  their  ethics  the  ethics 
of  pirates,  their  pledges  the  pledges  of  pirates,  their  re 
ligion  the  religion  of  pirates  and  of  pagans,  their  conscience 
the  conscience  of  the  Apache,  merit  in  murder.  Germany 's 
one  excuse  for  broken  faith,  "it  was  necessary."  It  was 
necessary  to  kill,  it  was  necessary  to  steal.  Never  a  prom 
ise  with  Korea  did  Japan  keep,  never  a  treaty  with  China. 
Germany  breaks  her  word  and  disregards  treaties ;  Nippon 
does  the  same.  Germany  loots  Europe ;  Nippon  loots  China. 
Germany  is  Christian, — God  save  the  mark;  Nippon  is 
pagan.  Both  are  alike  barbaric ;  each  sees  in  its  chief  ruler 
•the  divine  essence  incarnate;  he  is  invincible  and  can  do 
no  wrong. 

And  as  intimidation  is  the  primary  principle  of  pred 
atory  warfare,  best  to  intimidate  cruelty,  intrigue,  treach 
ery,  and  every  possible  phase  of  infamy  is  employed 
without  restriction.  The  art  is  the  same  as  that  employed 
by  savages  of  the  woods,  war  paint,  feathers,  and  bluster 


CHINA   AND    THE    UNITED    STATES         195 

attended  by  butcheries  and  burnings,  outrages  exceeding 
if  possible  those  of  the  Torquemada  torture  chamber. 

Just  now  emerging  from  barbarism  with  predatory  in 
stincts  in  full  force,  pillage  and  plunder  still  comes  as 
natural  to  Japanese  as  ever.  They  have  no  sense  of  obli 
gation.  They  fight  for  plunder  and  because  they  love  to 
dominate.  China  would  be  justified  in  sweeping  from  the 
turtle's  back  its  little  men,  and  one  day  may  do  so  when 
she  fully  awakens. 

Militarism  is  the  proper  system  for  a  predatory  people, 
—every  man  a  soldier  and  every  soldier  a  serf,  success  in 
murder  and  robbery  being  the  chief  mark  of  merit.  Their 
majesties  of  Berlin  and  Hades  have  much  in  common,  with 
little  Nippon  a  close  third  in  the  running.  Meanwhile 
Satan  sleeps,  well  satisfied  with  the  faithfulness  and  effi 
ciency  of  his  servants. 

Either  Japan,  with  Germany,  must  abolish  militarism 
or  the  United  States  must  adropt  more  drastic  methods, 
not  for  aggression  but  for  defense.  There  is  no  other  way 
unless  we  would  become  as  Belgium  is,  or  as  China. 

The  Japanese  are  ambitious,  restless,  unscrupulous. 
Since  their  enforced  emancipation  from  barbarism  before 
the  guns  of  Commodore  Perry  in  1853  they  have  made  giant 
strides  in  the  amenities  and  trickeries  of  European  civili 
zation.  They  are  dangerous  rivals,  doubly  dangerous  to 
California,  since  an  astute  congress,  while  fearing  them, 
has  turned  over  to  them  the  domination  of  the  Pacific. 
Their  demands  however  impudent,  we  must  hear  and  con 
sider,  for  they  do  things.  With  their  cheap  labor  and 
ship  subsidies  they  are  not  only  fast  controlling  commerce, 
but  their  merchant  marine  is  training  sailors  which  will 
give  them  naval  supremacy  as  well.  It  is  only  by  a  supe 
rior  navy  and  the  strongest  coast  defense  that  we  can 
escape  ultimate  conflict.  Already  Japan  has  her  Bernhardi 
and  book  for  the  capture  of  the  United  States  and  the  dis 
position  of  the  spoils. 


196  IN    THESE    LATTER   DATS 

Germany  keeps  secret  the  subtleties  of  her  strength; 
America  opens  her  doors,  and  even  sends  professors  abroad 
to  teach  paganism  how  best  to  despoil  her,  and  to  this 
insane  propaganda  they  give  names  as  world  enlighten 
ment  and  brotherly  love.  Japan  declares  openly  for 
aggressive  militarism,  the  most  infamous  doctrine  ever 
advanced  by  any  savage  or  so-called  civilized  people.  Ger 
many's  moral  law  is  brutism,  with  power,  pretence  and 
treachery  the  watchwords  of  her  advancement. 

When  we  receive  from  a  nation  void  of  gratitude  only 
abuse  for  favors  granted;  when  for  delivering  them  from 
the  depths  of  ignorance  we  are  charged  with  having  sent 
that  "rough  barbarian  Perry  to  our  beautiful  and  peaceful 
shores,  to  our  sweet-smelling  land  of  cherry  blossoms  and 
scented  forests;"  when  for  the  gifts  of  free  schools,  free 
universities,  free  hospitals,  free  court  service  and  prisons 
— for  the  labor  leaders  have  had  removed  for  the  benefit 
of  their  proteges  even  so  small  a  support  of  the  govern 
ment  as  the  poll-tax;  when  with  all  we  have  given  them 
we  do  not  give  them  more — all  we  have  would  scarcely 
satisfy  them — we  are  denounced  as  "a  nation  of  thieves 
with  hearts  of  rabbits/'  with  the  rallying  cry,  "let  us  take 
to  our  arms,  both  by  sea  and  land,  and  punish  these  devils, ' ' 
it  would  seem  that  university  or  any  other  extension  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Japanese  at  the  cost  of  our  tax-payers 
is  somewhat  superfluous. 

Wherefore  might  we  suggest  to  these  thrice  blessed 
pagans  of  Nippon,  that  if  they  would  remain  within  their 
beautiful  and  peaceful  shores,  and  smell  of  their  cherry 
blossoms  and  scented  forests,  attending  only  to  their  own 
affairs,  and  not  go  sniffing  abroad  for  blood  and  plunder, 
picking  up  and  pilfering  hither  and  yon,  it  is  all  we  would 
ask  or  demand  of  them. 

Encouraged  by  success  in  conflicts  with  weaker  powers 
Japan  regards  herself  invincible,  and  bides  her  time  to 
strike;  when  she  does  strike  it  will  be  the  beginning  of 
the  end  either  with  Japan  or  with  us. 


CHINA   AND    THE    UNITED    STATES        197 

Of  one  thing  we  may  rest  assured,  if  not  indeed  of  two, 
— first  the  Japanese  will  never  be  satisfied  until  they  have 
fought  America ;  and  secondly  they  will  win,  as  they  always 
win  in  China,  unless  we  are  fully  prepared  to  meet  them. 
Already  they  are  regarding  California  with  the  same  in 
vidious  eye  so  constantly  cast  on  China,  and  the  more 
placating  we  appear  the  greater  will  be  their  presumption. 

Would  we  teach  Asia  further  the  tricks  of  our  western 
civilization,  let  China  be  the  beneficiary,  while  we  go  to 
school  to  Nippon  and  there  learn  some  things  which  we 
have  never  taught. 

And  as  for  Germany,  missing  the  contemplated  theft 
and  assassination  of  Paris,  and  the  immediate  conquest  of 
Europe,  for  which  let  all  the  world  forever  thank  Belgium, 
may  it  not  be  possible  that  the  kaiser  now  finds  himself 
with  the  proverbial  bull  by  the  tail,  fearing  to  relinquish 
his  hold  until  terms  of  peace  are  settled?  He  would  retain 
Belgium,  which  cannot  be  held  until  England  France  and 
Italy  are  wiped  out,  for  to  retain  Belgium  would  be  wiping 
out  England  France  and  Italy. 

"Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?" 

"No,  Cain,  you  are  not  your  brother's  keeper.  You 
are  not  the  sort  of  fellow  to  keep  a  brother;  not  the  sort 
of  fellow  a  brother  would  choose  for  a  keeper.  You  do 
not  keep  your  bother,  you  kill  him,  even  as  Germany  kills 
such  of  her  neighbors  as  the  Lord  smiles  upon  too  openly. ' ' 

After  all  Cain  was  not  so  far  afield,  though  his  answer 
was  to  a  question  not  asked.  Humanity  is  not  here  estab 
lished  on  a  universal  brotherhood  plan,  as  Cain  and  the 
kaiser  clearly  demonstrate.  As  for  slumming  and  mis 
sionary  work,  it  comes  too  near  a  reflection  upon  the  power 
and  goodness  of  the  Almighty  to  attempt  to  alter  his  plans 
or  improve  upon  his  work. 

It  is  true  that  these  united  colonies  were  set  up  by  our 
worshipful  fathers  as  an  instrumentality  for  converting 
the  world  to  their  way  of  thinking,  which  they  carried 


198  IN   THESE   LATTER   DAYS 

out  by  following  the  example  of  Cain  only  in  part,  that 
is  they  killed  their  Indian  brothers  and  let  live  the  riff 
raff  from  Africa  and  Europe  for  the  purposes  of  citizens- 
ship.  It  all  worked  well  however,  until  a  later  generation 
came  on  to  turn  the  whole  outfit  into  a  money-making  man 
ufactory. 

Between  benevolence  and  the  glitter  of  gold  they  be 
came  so  blinded  that  they  could  not  see  the  much  greater 
opportunities  for  doing  good  that  lay  within  their  reach 
on  every  side.  Opportunities  for  doing  good  and  making 
money;  opportunities  for  doing  good  by  the  making  of 
money;  opportunities  for  doing  good  by  revolutionizing 
and  regulating  commercial  and  political  morality  and  dom 
inating  the  world  economically  should  their  ambition  soar 
so  high. 

As  for  the  Japanese,  their  attitude  in  relation  to  the 
present  war  shows  plainly  the  quality  of  their  pretensions. 
Their  ships  are  all  engaged  in  the  carrying  trade,  they 
say,  and  their  fighting  men  are  required  at  home  to  protect 
China  should  Germany  win!  Whereupon  the  noble  lords 
of  Nippon  kotow  to  the  hospitable  Americans,  and  the 
Americans  kotow  to  the  Nippons,  all  smiling  the  smile  of 
diplomacy,  all  still  kicking  the  carcass  of  Chinese  expulsion, 
though  forty-seven  years  have  passed  since  the  gentleman 
from  Ireland  with  his  dinner-pail  and  dray  cried  his 
crusade  to  the  dunes  of  San  Francisco. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    AUTOCRACY    OF    LABOR 

I  ASSUME  that  all  good  citizens  desire  to  do  the  right 
and  proper  thing  in  regard  to  both  employers  and  em 
ployed;  and  that  because  we  cannot  sanction  the  tyranny, 
injustice,  and  brutality  of  labor  leaders  we  are  not  thereby 
to  be  regarded  as  having  no  sympathy  for  the  working- 
man,  no  consideration  for  the  wrongs  and  impositions  in 
flicted  upon  him  by  the  tyranny  of  capital. 

It  is  not  the  workingman  whose  conduct  we  criticize, 
nor  is  it  unionism,  nor  is  it  the  rights  and  prerogatives 
of  labor  within  its  legitimate  sphere  to  which  we  would 
interpose  any  objections  so  long  as  labor  does  not  inter 
fere  with  the  rights  and  prerogatives  of  others.  Nor  would 
we  resort  to  force  except  to  repel  force.  Nor  would  we 
employ  dynamite  to  clinch  an  argument,  or  kill  in  order 
to  convince.  It  is  the  exploiters  of  the  workingman  alone, 
he  who  while  pretending  to  protect  robs  his  victims,  with 
whom  we  have  to  deal. 

The  tendency  among  all  progressive  people  is  toward 
organization,  industrial  organization,  political  and  social 
organization ;  and  even  with  regard  to  the  religious  senti 
ment,  the  present  and  past  superstitions  must  be  thrown 
aside  as  worse  than  worthless  and  reorganization  of  re 
ligion  achieved.  Recognizing  this  tendency  of  the  times 
as  general  and  fundamental,  we  would  surely  interpose 
no  objection  to  the  organization  of  labor  for  improvement 
and  protection. 

From  organized  labor  seeking  to  rule  in  politics  we 
are  coming  to  organized  religion  seeking  to  rule  in  politics, 

199 


200  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

which  is  dangerous  ground  for  either  labor  or  religion 
to  walk  upon.  It  was  for  this,  and  not  for  polygamy  that 
the  Mormons  where  driven  out  of  Illinois,  for  polygamy 
did  not  exist  at  the  time.  Voting  solid  and  carrying  all 
the  elections  was  deemed  unamerican. 

We  make  no  objections  to  labor  unions.  We  recognize 
in  the  system  of  government  by  party  that  it  is  the  best 
for  a  free  and  progressive  people,  and  have  no  desire  to 
restrict  the  workingman  from  full  participation  in  its  uses 
and  benefits;  but  we  object  to  the  formation  of  parties 
antagonistic  to  the  welfare  of  the  nation. 

Laborites  demand  first  of  all  liberal  pay  for  themselves ; 
then  the  shorter  hours  and  higher  pay  for  the  poor  toiler 
as  they  call  him;  in  consequence  railroads  demand  higher 
rates  for  transportation,  and  producers  higher  pay  for 
their  products,  which  compels  the  retailer  to  advance  his 
prices,  which  increases  the  cost  of  living,  all  of  which 
reacts  upon  the  poor  toiler  from  the  suicidal  mismanage 
ment  of  his  exploiters.  High  wages  increase  the  cost  of 
living;  the  cost  of  living  demands  higher  wages,  a  left- 
handed  reciprocity  the  rule  and  the  poor  man  in  the  rear. 

High-priced  labor,  the  constant  deterrent  to  competi 
tion  with  foreign  manufactures,  derives  its  support  from 
cheap  labor,  which  it  affects  to  despise;  for  if  there  were 
no  cheap  laborers  to  perform  the  humbler  tasks  of  life 
the  labor  aristocrats  would  have  to  do  their  own  drudgery, 
which  would  materially  interfere  with  their  income.  Labor 
leaders  oppose  limited  taxation,  prohibition,  or  any  other 
measure  however  beneficial  to  society  which  does  not  give 
them  some  unfair  advantage. 

They  take  the  ground  that  picketing  and  dynamiting, 
the  destruction  of  one's  business,  or  the  taking  of  life  is 
the  right  of  organized  labor,  and  order  their  retainers  to 
defy  the  courts  and  go  to  jail  rather  than  submit  to  the 
mandates  of  the  law. 

When  a  bomb  thrower  kills  two  or  twenty  innocent  per 
sons  labor-leaders  rush  to  his  aid,  and  pour  out  the  work- 


THE    AUTOCRACY   OF   LABOR  201 

ingman's  money  in  his  defense.     Then  the  women  visit 
the  prison  to  cheer  and  comfort  their  dynamiting  hero. 

Listen  to  the  story  of  Detroit,  famous  not  only  for  her 
marvelous  industrial  development,  but  because  the  em 
ployers  and  employees  there  have  created  a  community 
of  industrial  peace  and  domestic  content.  Cannot  the  rest 
of  the  country  profit  by  their  example?  Why  should  not 
the  people  of  San  Francisco  learn  that  the  open  shop  is 
the  way  of  peace,  as  Detroit  has  learned  it.  San  Francisco 
is  a  closed  shop  town.  Detroit  is  an  open  shop  town,  a 
town  where  free  and  independent  men  are  hired  for  effi 
ciency  and  paid  liberal  wages.  In  1899  Detroit  had  1,259 
factories.  In  1899  San  Francisco  had  1,748  factories,  or 
489  more  than  Detroit.  Ten  years  later  Detroit  had  2,036 
factories,  while  San  Francisco  had  but  1,796,  or  240  less 
than  Detroit.  During  the  same  ten  years  Detroit's  wage 
earners  increased  from  39,373  to  81,011.  During  the  same 
ten  years  San  Francisco's  wage  earners  decreased  from 
32,555  to  28,244. 

How  much  has  the  tyrannical  reign  of  closed-shop 
unionism  done  to  retard  San  Frascisco.  Recent  desperate 
efforts  to  break  the  shackles  of  this  union  strangle-hold 
indicate  that  the  public  is  growing  weary  of  the  closed 
shop  as  San  Francisco  knows  it. 

On  the  thirteenth  day  of  December,  1902,  sixteen  firms, 
employers  of  labor  in  Detroit,  met  and  drew  up  a  tempo 
rary  agreement  whose  preamble  reads  as  follows:  Believ 
ing  that  the  time  has  come  when  all  employers  of  labor 
must  organize  for  mutual  protection  and  united  action, 
and  believing  that  such  results  can  be  best  secured  by 
having  a  central  office  and  a  competent  secretary  with 
necessary  office  help,  we  the  undersigned  employers  do 
hereby  form  ourselves  into  an  association. 

This  was  the  beginning,  the  birth  of  the  employers' 
association  of  Detroit.  In  later  meetings  these  original 
articles  of  agreement  crystallized  into  the  association's 


202  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

declaration  of  principles,  which  was  as  follows:  No  dis 
crimination  shall  be  made  against  any  man  because  of  his 
membership  in  any  society  or  organization.  Subject  to 
any  rights  under  contracts  existing  between  them,  it  is 
the  privilege  of  both  the  employer  and  the  employee  to 
terminate  their  relations  whenever  either  sees  fit  to  do  so. 

Since  the  employer  is  responsible  for  the  work  turned 
out  by  his  workmen,  he  must  therefore  have  full  discre 
tion  to  designate  the  men  he  considers  competent  to  per 
form  the  work,  and  to  determine  the  methods  under  which 
that  work  shall  be  performed;  the  question  of  the  compe 
tency  of  the  men,  and  the  number  of  foremen,  apprentices, 
helpers,  and  handy-men  to  be  employed  to  be  determined 
by  the  employer. 

Employees  will  be  paid  by  the  hourly  rate,  by  pre 
mium  system,  piecework,  contract,  or  otherwise,  as  the 
employer  may  elect.  No  limitation  by  fellow  employees, 
or  any  organization,  of  the  quantity  or  value  of  work  an 
employee  may  accomplish  in  a  given  time  will  be  tolerated. 
Foremen  shall  be  the  agents  of  the  employer. 

In  the  operation  of  any  system  of  hours  or  wages  now 
in  force  or  to  be  extended  or  established  in  the  future, 
this  association  will  not  countenance  any  conditions  which 
are  not  just,  or  which  will  not  allow  a  workman  to  earn  a 
wage  proportionate  to  his  productive  capacity. 

In  1916  the  members  of  the  Detroit  employers'  asso 
ciation  numbered  nearly  two  hundred,  and  these  firms 
employ  more  than  one-half  of  the  working  population  of 
Detroit,  more  than  100,000  men.  Every  week  the  mem 
bers  of  this  association  distribute  in  pay  envelopes  over 
$1,000,000.  It  has  established  a  reputation  for  fair  deal 
ing  with  its  workmen,  no  discrimination  in  employment, 
the  best  of  wages,  splendid  shop  conditions,  and  reason 
able  hours. 

The  steady  influx  of  desirable  workmen  from  all  sec 
tions  of  the  country,  even  when  times  are  prosperous  else 
where,  is  the  best  indication  that  wages  here  are  attractive. 


THE    AUTOCRACY    OF    LABOR  203 

A  recent  careful  survey  among  the  manufacturing  indus 
tries,  involving  over  75,000  workmen,  discloses  the  fact 
that  64  per  cent  of  these  men  work  less  than  ten  hours 
a  day,  and  that  the  great  majority  have  in  addition  to 
these  reasonable  hours  the  benefit  of  the  Saturday  half- 
holiday. 

The  association  maintains  an  efficient  employment  bu 
reau,  the  largest  and  most  successful  of  its  kind  in  the 
world.  Through  this  office  the  man  out  of  a  job  is  promptly 
put  in  touch  with  plants  where  there  are  vacancies  for 
which  he  is  qualified.  He  applies  in  a  scruplously  clean, 
light,  well-ventilated,  commodious  room,  is  treated  with 
courtesy,  questioned  as  to  his  experience,  the  length  of 
his  service  with  his  last  and  previous  employers,  and  with 
out  any  question,  in  normal  times,  as  to  his  affiliation  with 
a  labor  union  or  any  other  organization  or  society,  is  di 
rected  to  a  firm  with  whom  he  .is  most  likely  to  secure 
employment. 

During  the  first  six  months  of  the  year  in  this  manner 
20,691  men  were  placed  in  positions  to  their  liking.  Of 
this  number  only  six  per  cent  were  men  of  no  skill,  or  of 
the  class  termed  common  labor. 

In  addition  to  the  activities  of  the  association  toward 
the  securing  of  a  just  workmen's  compensation  act,  it  has 
for  years  urged  the  modification  of  the  labor  laws  of  the 
state  to  the  extend  of  permitting  a  young  man  to  appren 
tice  himself  to  a  trade  when  he  has  reached  the  age  of 
sixteen  years.  The  law  as  it  originally  stood  practically 
prohibited  his  employment  in  any  shop  until  he  became 
eighteen  years  old.  At  the  last  session  of  the  legislature 
an  amendment,  prepared  by  the  association,  was  offered, 
under  which  the  employment  of  the  boy  at  sixteen,  at 
work  and  under  conditions  bearing  the  approval  of  the 
state  labor  commissioner,  is  permitted.  In  addition  it  pro 
hibits  the  employment  of  any  child  at  any  work  until  he 
has  completed  the  sixth  grade  of  the  public  school. 

During  the  first  or  second  year  of  the  association's 


204  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

existence  its  executive  committee  recommended,  and  in 
this  the  membership  unanimously  concurred,  that  the  fifty- 
five  hour  week  be  established  and  maintained  as  far  as 
practicable.  It  was  suggested  that  during  the  spring, 
summer  and  fall  months  the  working  hours  be  so  arranged 
as  to  give  the  men  the  benefit  of  a  half -holiday  on  Satur 
days,  in  other  words,  ten  hours  per  day  for  five  days  of 
the  week,  and  five  hours  on  Saturday.  This  was  in  a  great 
many  instances  found  a  most  satisfactory  arrangement, 
and  the  majority  of  those  firms  who  observed  it  during 
the  summer  made  no  change  when  the  cold  weather  came 
on,  but  continued  with  the  Saturday  half-holiday  through 
out  the  year. 

A  recent  careful  canvass  of  the  association's  member 
ship,  in  all  lines,  including  the  building  trades,  indicates 
that  35  per  cent  of  the  firms  operate  on  the  basis  of  from 
48  to  50  hours  a  week;  35  per  cent  running  55  hours;  30 
per  cent  from  55  to  60  hours.  In  the  instance  of  the  shops 
which  operate  more  than  fifty-five  hours,  it  is  generally 
considered  that  the  men  are  willing  to  work  the  longer 
day,  that  is,  up  to  ten  hours,  because  of  the  peculiar  prod 
uct  or  conditions  existing  in  the  plant,  and  also  because 
it  gives  them  an  opportunity  to  earn  larger  wages.  This 
is  particularly  true  with  that  large  proportion  of  these 
workmen  who  are  on  a  piece-work  basis.  The  fifty-five 
hour,  half  day  a  week  holiday  arrangement  appeals  to  a 
great  many  workmen.  It  is  one  of  the  conditions  in  De 
troit  that  are  so  attractive  to  men  in  other  communities 
who  are  seeking  to  better  themselves. 

The  best  indication  that  wages  in  Detroit  are  better 
than  in  other  similar  communities,  is  the  desire  and  wil 
lingness  of  mechanics  in  all  crafts  to  go  there.  Men  are 
attracted  first  by  the  wages  they  can  secure;  second  by 
comfortable  living  conditions,  and  third  by  opportunities 
for  enjoying  that  part  of  their  income  which  they  may 
set  aside  for  rest  and  recreation. 

To  sum  it  all  up,  the  reasonable  working  hours  preva- 


THE    AUTOCRACY    OF    LABOR  205 

lent  there,"  the  satisfactory  rates  of  wages,  the  comfort 
able,  well-lighted,  clean  sanitary  shops,  that  are  offered  to 
men  who  would  work  in  Detroit,  have  come  not  as  the  re 
sult  of  enforced  demands  of  organized  labor,  but  from 
the  desire  on  the  part  of  the  open  shop  proprietor  to  have 
a  contented,  efficient  working  force. 

The  case  against  the  closed  shop  is  this:  It  denies  the 
right  of  the  American  citizen  to  hire  or  be  hired  without 
artificial  restriction ;  it  prefers  force  to  reason ;  it  hampers 
enterprise  and  sanctifies  inefficiency,  establishes  faction, 
accentuates  class,  and  breeds  monopoly. 

All  this  is  to  be  remembered  if  we  would  know  exactly 
what  the  open  shop  means  to  America  as  distinguished 
from  the  closed  shop.  Freedom  of  action  is  the  very  soul 
of  our  liberty  loving  people.  Only  when  it  has  been  demon 
strated  that  it  is  indisputably  necessary  for  the  general 
welfare  is  any  curtailment  of  personal  liberty  condoned 
or  permitted  in  America. 

The  theory  of  the  open  shop  guarantees  liberty  in  in 
dustry  and  freedom  of  action.  It  denies  nothing  but  mo 
nopoly  and  coercion  and  class  rule. 

It  does  not  deny  the  right  of  the  wage- worker  to  join 
a  union,  or  to  bargain  with  his  employer  individually  or 
collectively. 

It  does  not  deny  the  right  of  the  employer  and  the 
wage -worker  in  each  case  to  conduct  their  relations  in 
the  particular  way  that  suits  them  best. 

It  does  not  deny  the  right  of  the  wage-workers  to  strike 
when  they  deem  themselves  oppressed  and  believe  they  can 
secure  redress  in  no  other  way. 

It  does  not  deny  the  right  of  the  wage-worker  of  excep 
tional  skill  and  productiveness  to  earn  more  than  the 
wage-worker  of  less  ability. 

It  does  not  deny  the  right  of  any  institution  to  pro 
duce  its  maximum  output,  nor  does  it  deny  that  efficient 
management  and  operation  is  a  benefit  to  the  community 
and  to  the  nation. 


206  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

• 

It  does  not  deny  the  right  of  apprentices  to  learn  their 
trade  as  rapidly  and  thoroughly  as  possible. 

It  does  not  deny  the  increasing  tendency  of  public  opin 
ion  to  secure  for  labor  just  consideration  in  the  matter  of 
wages,  hours,  and  shop  conditions. 

It  does  not  deny  the  power  of  persuasion  nor  exalt  the 
power  of  compulsion. 

It  does  not  deny  the  right  of  capital  to  organize  in 
restraint  of  trade,  and  grants  the  same  right  to  labor. 

Practice  is  more  convincing  than  theory.  There  are 
instances  where  the  open  shop  has  been  tried  and  found 
wanting.  Employers  who  take  advantage  of  the  open  shop 
to  depress  wages  and  overwork  their  men  may  expect  to 
confront  difficulties  sooner  or  later.  It  is  in  human  nature 
to  resent  exploitation,  and  union  labor  is  ever  ready  to 
lead  the  attack.  Even  employers  who  accord  their  men 
everything  demanded  by  the  labor  unions,  or  more,  as  in 
the  automobile  industry  of  Detroit,  have  been  openly  de 
nounced  by  the  American  federation  of  labor  because  they 
refuse  to  operate  their  shops  for  the  exclusive  benefit  of 
members  of  the  unions. 

The  closed  shop  takes  the  selection  of  employees  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  employers,  and  places  it  in  the  hands 
of  the  men  themselves.  The  test  of  selection  then  becomes 
the  possession  of  a  union  card  instead  of  the  possession 
of  skill  and  capacity.  The  employer  is  further  handi 
capped  by  the  obstinate  opposition  of  the  union  to  meth 
ods  of  production  which  will  increase  the  efficiency  of 
the  plant,  or  permit  the  payment  of  unusual  wages  to 
unusual  men,  as  witness  the  special  provision  made  by 
Congress,  to  prohibit  an  increase  of  efficiency  in  United 
States  arsenals.  Likewise  the  employer's  supply  of  labor 
is  further  reduced  by  the  unions  to  countenance  any  ade 
quate  system  of  apprenticeship  that  it  does  not  control 
and  retard.  Like  the  German  kaiser,  they  repudiate  their 
agreements  at  their  pleasure,  as  in  the  car  strike  in  De- 


THE    AUTOCRACY    OF    LABOR  207 

troit,  when  the  union  ignored  its  own  signature  to  a  eon- 
tract  guaranteeing  arbitration  of  such  disputes  as  were 
then  at  issue.  At  other  times  the  closed  shop  fosters  a 
system  of  graft  and  blackmail  by  which  employers  must 
buy  from  union  bosses  protection  against  strikes,  as  in 
Chicago,  where  a  coterie  of  the  bosses  were  indicted. 

It  was  under  the  auspices  of  the  closed  shop  that  the 
Los  Angeles  massacre  was  made  possible  under  the  alleged 
direction  of  the  McNamara  brothers.  It  was  the  closed 
shop  that  brought  about  the  conspiracy  concluded  at  In 
dianapolis  by  the  imprisonment  of  a  squad  of  union  lead 
ers.  And  it  is  rare  indeed  that  any  single  union  has  shown 
a  disposition  to  purge  itself  of  such  offenses  or  of  the  men 
responsible  for  them. 

It  was  in  the  name  of  the  closed  shop  that  the  famous 
Danbury  hatters  went  about  the  amiable  business  of  ruin 
ing  one  firm  through  a  boycott,  and  was  made  to  pay  a 
bur'densome  fine  for  violation  of  the  anti-trust  law,  though 
without  any  help  from  those  who  assured  them  that  help 
would  be  forthcoming,  and  who  raised  such  large  funds 
for  the  defense  of  the  offenders  at  Los  Angeles. 

It  was  in  the  name  of  the  closed  shop  that  laws  were 
passed  in  a  dozen  states,  and  taken  seriously  until  knocked 
out  by  the  supreme  court,  prohibiting  discrimination 
against  union  men  in  the  matter  of  employment,  though 
not  a  single  law  was  enacted  prohibiting  discrimination 
against  non-union  men. 

It  is  in  the  name  of  the  closed  shop  that  the  American 
federation  of  labor,  representing  only  some  2,000,000  wage- 
workers  in  the  United  States,  is  bending  every  effort  to 
the  enactment  of  federal  laws  that  will  create  a  monopoly 
of  employment  for  organized  labor  exclusively,  and  let 
business  take  the  consequences.  It  is  the  ideal  of  its  presi 
dent  that  the  American  congress  should  compel  every  wage- 
worker  to  join  a  union  and  then  remove  every  vestige  of 
public  control  from  the  unions,  besides  enslaving  labor 


208  IN   THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

and  passing  the  government  of  the  United  States  over  to 
the  pirates  of  industry. 

" Permit  me  to  say,"  remarked  Senator  Borah,  "to  the 
man  of  labor,  that  it  has  never  been  a  matter  of  very  much 
concern  to  the  man  of  great  wealth  under  what  form  of 
government  he  lives.  In  the  hour  of  lawlessness,  when 
disorder  and  crime  prevail,  he  finds  a  way  to  protect  him 
self.  But  there  is  only  one  sure  and  certain  protection 
and  safeguard  for  the  poor,  and  that  is  a  government  of 
just  and  equal  laws,  faithfully  enforced  and  universally 
obeyed.  He  finds  his  protection  in  a  free,  open  republic, 
in  whose  supreme  power  and  honor  all  may  share,  and 
whose  orderly  justice  all  may  enjoy." 

Let  the  man  of  labor  learn  that  lesson.  He  is  enjoy 
ing  to-day  two-thirds  of  the  fruits  of  industry,  as  the  inves 
tigations  of  the  national  civic  federation  show.  In  the 
gradual  democratization  of  industry  he  will  have  more  and 
more  influence  and  a  larger  security.  His  hope  is  in  work 
ing  with  capital,  and  not  against  it;  in  encouraging  the 
investment  and  expenditure  of  capital,  not  in  driving  it 
into  hiding ;  in  helping  new  enterprises,  not  in  worrying  em 
ployers  to  distraction.  His  best  weapon  is  not  force,  but 
reason.  Once  it  is  quite  clear  to  him  that  the  open  shop  is 
not  one  and  the  same  with  hatred  of  labor,  as  certain  of  his 
leaders  would  have  him  believe,  his  perplexities  will  begin 
to  dissolve.  Once  he  has  seen  clearly  the  social  aspect  of  the 
open  shop,  he  will  understand  that  he  cannot  promote 
his  own  interests  unless  he  promotes  the  interests  of  his 
country. 

And  once  it  is  firmly  established  in  the  public  mind 
of  America  that  the  open  shop  means  nothing  more  or  less 
than  a  reaffirmation  of  the  ancient  American  doctrine  of 
individual  freedom,  and  the  revaluation  of  the  measure 
less  American  asset  of  individual  initiative,  the  closed  shop 
will  take  its  proper  place  in  the  distant  limbo  of  forgotten 
heresy. 

"  There  is  no  mystery  concerning  the  specific  demands 


THE    AUTOCRACY   OF   LABOR  209 

of  the  American  federation  of  labor,"  says  Mr.  Irvine, 
manager  of  the  employers'  association  of  Washington. 
"They  would  repeal  the  law  of  conspiracy  against  labor 
unions,  abolish  the  injunction,  stay  the  arm  of  every  gov 
ernor,  prevent  the  use  of  the  militia  in  labor  riots,  legal 
ize  the  boycott,  and  do  some  twenty  other  acts  in  the  line 
of  class  legislation  and  against  the  rights  of  man." 

Nobody  denies  the  right  of  laboring  men  to  combine 
into  unions  for  lawful  and  proper  purposes,  to  shorten  the 
hours  and  conditions  of  their  employment  to  obtain  higher 
wages,  and  above  all  to  increase  their  earning  power  by 
the  adoption  of  modern  scientific  methods.  We  never  hear 
of  combinations  of  the  unions  for  the  purpose  of  realizing 
their  ambitions  without  violence,  or  to  realize  legitimate 
ambitions  in  any  manner  whatsoever.  The  labor  monop 
oly  is  operated  on  the  rule  or  ruin  policy.  Argument  and 
moral  suasion  have  long  ago  been  abandoned  for  the  boy- 
mott,  the  bludgeon,  and  the  coercion  of  legislators. 

By  becoming  the  absolute  master  of  the  labor  market 
the  labor  trust  hopes  to  dictate  the  terms  under  which  pro 
duction  may  go  forward,  to  regulate  hours,  wages,  quan 
tity,  and  quality  of  the  finished  product  which  each  work 
man  shall  produce  in  a  given  time.  This  sort  of  domina 
tion  would  give  the  results  seen  in  England,  where  unions 
have  long  been  almost  untrammeled.  The  British  printer 
and  machinist  do  less  than  half  the  work  of  an  American 
artisan  in  the  same  line.  The  employer  thus  becomes  a 
nonentity,  an  automaton  at  the  mercy  of  the  union  which 
makes  the  restrictions.  The  union  thus  becomes  the  des 
potic  commander  of  his  employer.  The  next  step  will  be 
for  the  workman  to  help  himself  to  what  he  produces, 
under  the  theory  that  labor  is  entitled  to  all  it  produces. 

Regardless  of  supply  and  demand,  regardless  even  of 
the  needs  of  the  country  itself,  whose  very  existence  may 
be  at  stake,  as  in  England  to-day,  the  tyrant  in  control 
of  the  labor  monopoly  may  defy  the  government  and  snap 
its  finger  at  penal  codes. 


210  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

How  can  any  state  expect  to  develop  its  resources  if 
invested  capital,  which  is  a  logical  part  of  every  industrial 
activity,  is  thus  crippled  by  extortion,  inefficiency,  and  the 
iron  rule  of  the  labor  trust?  How  can  young  men  hope 
for  a  future  in  a  state  where  they  are  forbidden  to  learn 
a  trade,  where  they  are  outlawed  under  their  country's 
flag? 

Regardless  of  the  original  principles  of  the  unions,  or 
the  character  of  their  founders,  the  American  federation  of 
labor  has  become  a  great  labor  monopoly,  a  menace  to  the 
nation. 

Based  on  a  false  conception  of  the  rights  of  man,  and 
depending  for  its  success  on  the  surrender  of  individual 
liberty,  it  cannot  permanently  last  under  the  American 

flag. 

% 

Its  employment  of  the  methods  of  barbaric  warfare 
such  as  the  strike,  the  boycott,  picketing,  and  class  legis 
lation  enforced  by  coercion,  is  contrary  to  every  ethical 
conception  of  the  square  deal. 

But  this  country  abounds  in  examples  of  outrageous 
conduct  by  members  of  unions  who  are  ordinarily  deemed 
to  be  good  citizens.  In  Seattle  and  many  other  cities 
throughout  the  United  States  thousands  of  men  marched 
and  cheered  for  the  McNamara  murderers,  while  they 
were  on  trial  and  before  they  had  confessed  their  guilt 
in  the  case  where  they  were  indicted  for  destroying  more 
than  a  score  of  human  beings  by  dynamite.  No  question 
of  hours  or  wages  was  involved.  The  murders  were  a  part 
of  the  program  to  force  the  closed  shop  on  the  country. 

The  fact  that  men  may  become  so  misguided  and  fanat 
ical  as  to  carry  banners  reading,  "If  the  McNamaras  are 
guilty  so  are  we, ' '  should  warn  us  of  the  dangerous  extent 
to  which  the  doctrines  of  the  American  federation  of  labor 
may  go  toward  destroying  every  patriotic  ideal  in  the 
American  republic.  But  if  every  demand  of  the  American 
federation  of  labor  were  based  on  the  immutable  princi- 


THE    AUTOCRACY   OF   LABOR  211 

pies  of  justice,  the  means  they  employ  to  enforce  those 
demands  would  discredit  the  organization. 

' '  Join  my  union  or  starve  to  death ! "  is  the  basis  of  the 
entire  union  movement  in  the  United  States.  With  in 
creasing  boldness  the  demand  is  made  in  every  city  and 
industrial  centre  that  if  any  man  shall  refuse  to  join  their 
union,  he  shall  not  eat.  This  is  an  attack  on  the  funda 
mental  right  to  life  itself.  No  end  can  justify  a  policy 
so  brutal,  a  rule  so  tyrannical. 

The  employers'  association  of  Washington  is  engaged 
in  forwarding  a  great  educational  campaign,  although  the 
organization  itself  is  still  in  its  infancy.  Their  task  is  to 
convince  the  country  that  their  opposition  to  the  program 
of  labor  is  not  from  selfish  motives,  but  because  they  know 
that  coercion  and  violence  can  never  promote  the  general 
welfare  of  the  people  of  the  United  States. 

Contrary  to  a  prevailing  opinion,  too,  business  men  are 
not  only  not  working  against  the  labor  monopoly  for  sel 
fish  motives,  but  the  business  men  as  a  class  are  not  organ 
ized  and  are  not  working  at  all.  This  is  the  pity  of  it. 
If  the  business  interests  of  the  country  were  really  united 
in  the  sense  that  organized  labor  is  united,  the  unions 
would  be  reformed  or  destroyed  within  twenty-four  hours. 

Regardless  of  the  fact  that  the  rank  and  file  of  union 
men  may  be  good  neighbors  and  good  friends,  their  poli 
cies  are  against  good  morals,  against  good  citizenship,  and 
in  opposition  to  the  peace  and  dignity  of  society,  and  con 
trary  to  every  conception  of  human  rights. 

We  cannot  sanction  the  program  of  any  organization 
whose  main  purpose  is  to  destroy  free  labor,  the  right  to 
earn  an  honest  living  without  the  consent  of  any  man  or 
union  of  men.  Opposition  to  the  labor  trust  is  most  log 
ical  and  effective  when  aimed  against  legislation  which 
exempts  the  unions  from  prosecution  for  violence. 

In  imitation  of  what  they  see,  whether  for  good  or 
evil,  the  Japanese  have  their  labor  unions  throughout  the 


212  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

country,  with  their  federation  of  labor,  and  the  rest.  About 
the  bay  of  San  Francisco  are  nine  unions,  the  Japanese 
day  workers'  union  of  San  Francisco,  the  fruit  cleaners' 
union  of  San  Francisco,  the  bakers'  union  of  San  Fran 
cisco,  the  tailors'  union  of  San  Francisco,  the  day  workers' 
union  of  Berkeley,  the  laundry  workers'  union,  the  shoe 
makers'  union,  the  garden  workers'  union  of  Alameda  and 
the  Japanese  farm  laborers'  union.  This  embraces  the 
Japanese  farm  laborers  employed  in  the  bay  district  only. 
The  idea  is  to  federate  all  the  Japanese  laborers  in  Cali 
fornia  first  into  a  strong  central  body,  the  organization 
to  be  extended  gradually  to  take  in  all  the  Japanese  la 
borers  in  the  United  States, — a  happy  preparedness  on 
the  part  of  Japan  for  the  coming  war. 

After  a  permanent  organization  is  effected,  the  Japa 
nese  federation  will  seek  affiliation  with  the  American  fed 
eration  of  labor,  on  understanding  that  the  two  bodies 
may  work  together  for  the  common  objects.  The  Japanese 
long-shoremen  at  Honolulu  strike,  and  the  white  men  join 
them,  one  of  our  lessons  to  the  heathen  brought  home  to  us. 

What  is  this  American  federation  of  labor,  this  great 
dragon,  an  empire  within  an  empire,  thus  gnawing  at  the 
vitals  of  the  commonwealth?  The  federation  consists  of 
110  national  and  international  unions,  which  are  subdi 
vided  into  22,000  local  unions.  They  employ  1,800  paid 
organizers  of  locals  and  publish  540  weekly  and  monthly 
papers.  Their  paying  membership  is  two  millions;  their 
total  membership  possibly  half  a  million  more. 

Large  sums  are  annually  raised  by  dues,  assessments, 
fines,  and  donations.  They  are  ruled  by  suggestions  and 
imperative  commands.  They  are  a  well-disciplined  and 
unified  militant  force,  one  in  thought  and  action,  always 
ready  for  instant  battle.  Their  organizers  are  sleepless, 
devoted,  tenacious.  They  are  fanatical  in  their  hatred  of 
capitalists,  employers,  and  non-union  men.  Workmen  who 
refuse  to  join  the  union  are  pursued  with  a  ferocity  that 
often  finds  expression  in  deeds  of  bloody  violence.  Even 


THE    AUTOCRACY    OF   LABOR  213 

in  times  of  peace  they  are  held  up  to  scorn,  denounced 
as  snakes,  rats,  and  scabs. 

Their  object  is  to  command  the  labor  markets  of  the 
world  by  forbidding  any  except  their  members  from  work 
ing  in  any  field  of  human  endeavor.  By  extending  their 
work  among  farmers  they  aim  to  control  the  production 
and  distribution  of  food  products.  For  more  than  three 
years  Congress  has  annually  appropriated  $500,000  for  the 
enforcement  of  the  Sherman  anti-trust  law,  with  an  express 
prohibition  that  no  portion  of  this  sum  shall  be  used  to 
prosecute  any  combination  of  laborers  or  agriculturists. 
Was  ever  greater  cowardice  seen  on  American  soil  than 
this  treasonous  surrender  of  human  rights?  Cowardice, 
or  a  bid  for  democratic  votes,  which? 

In  other  words  the  American  federation  of  labor  may 
commit  with  impunity  acts  which  it  would  be  criminal 
for  any  one  else  to  commit.  Thus  Congress  makes  this  a 
government  by  ignoble  blackmailers,  this  the  land  of  Jef 
ferson  and  Lincoln,  of  Bunker  Hill  and  Gettysburg! 

Returning  to  our  mutton,  that  is  to  say  to  the  mutton- 
head  makers  and  executors  of  our  laws,  should  it  not  make 
the  blood  of  an  American  boil  with  indignation  to  witness 
the  action  of  our  courts,  thus  to  see  all  common  sense, 
fair  play,  and  decency  swept  aside  by  cowards,  who  yield 
to  the  coercion  of  a  labor  lobby  representing  less  than  three 
million  of  the  hundred  million  people  living  under  the 
American  flag? 

The  Sherman  anti-trust  law  reaffirmed  in  statutory 
form  a  decision  of  the  supreme  court  of  the  United  States 
which  held  the  boycott  an  indictable  conspiracy. 

Senator  Edmunds,  the  real  author  of  the  Sherman  act, 
specifically  declared  that  it  was  directly  aimed  against 
boycotting  as  much  as  against  any  other  illegal  act.  The 
enforcement  of  this  law  would  settle  matters.  But  the 
legislative  program  was  the  exemption  of  labor  organi 
zation  from  the  civil  and  criminal  penalties  of  the  Sher 
man  act,  the  repeal  of  the  law  of  conspiracy  for  labor 


214  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

unions,  the  abolition  of  all  injunction  proceedings  during 
labor  disputes,  the  destruction  of  the  power  of  courts  by 
having  jury  trials  in  contempt  cases,  legalizing  the  boy 
cott,  regulation  of  the  hours  of  labor,  the  prevention  of 
efficiency  methods  in  the  public  service,  the  prevention 
of  government  from  dealing  with  firms  whose  products 
are  manufactured  under  efficiency  methods,  and  the  legal 
ization  of  the  strike  and  the  boycott  with  all  the  circum 
stances  attending  their  use  against  employers.  To  obtain 
these  ends  labor  opposes  its  foes  in  cities,  states,  and  na 
tion.  All  candidates  and  members  of  legislative  bodies 
are  closely  questioned  in  writing  as  to  their  views  on  labor 
measures,  and  efforts  are  made  to  elect  union  labor  men 
to  office.  Bills  formerly  referred  to  the  judiciary  com 
mittee  for  technical  analysis  are  now  hastily  rushed  through 
the  committee  on  labor,  where  they  are  approved.  As  a 
result  of  the  federation's  activities  in  other  sections  of 
the  United  States  no  less  than  fifteen  members  of  the 
house  of  representatives  hold  union  labor  cards.  Such  is 
United  States  justice. 

In  February  1908  Senator  Albert  Beveridge  wrote  as 
follows:  "Organized  labor  has  an  efficient  lobby  here  at 
all  times.  Measures  proposed  by  them,  while  at  first  re 
ceived  with  coldness  and  hostility,  finally  assume  the  pro 
portions  of  a  movement,  and  great  numbers  of  senators 
and  congressmen  vote  for  such  measures  through  fear. 
And  all  the  legislation  thus  fostered  by  the  well  organized 
unions,  and  forced  so  vigorously  as  to  inspire  congressmen 
with  terror  is  vicious  and  unjust,  wholly  opposed  to  the 
spirit  of  fair  play  and  the  genius  of  our  institutions. 
Having  secured  a  federal  compensation  act  against  acci 
dents,  they  wanted  something  similar  covering  sickness 
which  if  obtained  would  diminish  the  number  of  able  men 
at  work  materially." 

Leave  the  laborites  alone  and  they  will  destroy  the 
commonwealth  and  themselves  in  time,  as  expenses  grow 


THE    AUTOCRACY    OF    LABOK  215 

faster  than  wages.  The  union  label  and  boycott  infamies 
are  only  two  out  of  twenty  ways  they  have  of  imposing 
upon  the  community.  By  the  use  of  a  union  label  they 
would  prevent,  so  far  as  possible,  the  sale  or  consumption 
of  any  goods  or  articles  not  made  by  union  labor.  By 
employing  the  boycott  they  would  drive  out  of  business 
and  ruin,  if  possible,  all  shops,  merchants,  and  restaurants 
that  do  not  conduct  business  according  to  the  dictations 
of  labor  leaders. 

Union  labor  opposes  whatever  lessens  its  strength  and 
influence.  It  opposes  profit-sharing  because  it  is  a  form 
of  increasing  wages  in  which  the  labor  leaders  have  no 
hand,  and  can  derive  for  themselves  no  profit.  They  pre 
fer  permanent  increase  of  wages  under  the  old  system  of 
coercion.  Profit-sharing  is  for  the  open  shop.  If  to  give 
the  workman  a  share  of  the  product  is  necessary,  then  the 
workman  should  share  in  the  losses  as  well. 

The  labor  lords  would  establish  unionism  in  Mexico," 
in  Japan,  everywhere  in  the  world,  that  through  their 
mechanism  they  might  rule  the  world  by  ruling  labor,  and 
turn  their  monopoly  of  industry  into  economic  militarism. 
And  this,  though  they  are  generally  advocates  of  peace. 
They  are  opposed  to  war  of  any  sort,  or  for  any  purpose, 
as  it  touches  their  personal  interests,  taking  the  working- 
men  from  their  control  and  diverting  their  influence  over 
their  proteges.  They  foster  the  idea  that  there  is  a  con 
flict  of  interests  between  labor  and  capital,  between  the 
laborer  and  the  employer  of  labor,  in  a  word  that  the  two 
are  natural  enemies. 

Strikes  are  a  crime  against  the  community,  an  unjust 
imposition  upon  innocent  persons,  besides  bringing  hun 
ger,  disease  and  death  to  the  workingman  and  loss  to  the 
employer.  This  I  have  long  contended,  that  strikes  are 
a  crime,  and  I  am  satisfied  that  the  time  is  not  far  distant 
when  they  will  be  so  declared  by  law.  As  Mr.  Lovett  of 
the  Union  Pacific  railway  says : 

"It  seems  inconceivable  that  a  nation  as  dependent  as 


216  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

ours  upon  railroad  transportation  should  permit  a  strike 
to  occur.  It  seems  to  me  that  one  of  the  plainest  duties 
of  the  national  government,  not  merely  to  the  railroads 
but  to  the  whole  people,  is  to  provide  means  for  settling 
disputes  between  the  railroads  and  the  trainmen  likely  to 
lead  to  such  strikes.  Men  cannot  be  compelled  to  work 
against  their  will,  and  no  one  suggests  it,  but  men  can  be 
forbidden  to  enter  into  and  carry  out  a  conspiracy  to  inter 
fere  with  and  suspend  interstate  commerce." 

While  the  department  of  labor  at  Washington  was 
racking  its  brain  for  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  the 
unemployed,  laborites  were  enjoying  the  income  from  the 
hold-up  of  one-third  of  the  wage-earners  in  the  United 
States  by  the  machinations  of  the  closed  shop  infamy, 
meanwhile  throwing  all  the  work  at  exorbitant  rates  to 
their  proteges,  that  is  to  say  to  those  who  paid  them. 

If  there  is  no  other  way  to  settle  differences  between 
employers  and  employees  but  a  resort  to  force,  then  let 
us  know  it  and  have  laws  made  to  meet  the  emergencies. 
No  legislative  body  has  any  right  to  dictate  to  the  people 
how  many  hours  they  shall  work,  or  what  shall  be  their 
pay,  or  what  they  shall  eat,  or  drink,  or  wear.  It  is  a  re 
turn  to  the  sumptuary  laws  of  feudalism.  Machine  made 
industry  is  no  better  than  machine  made  morality. 

In  regard  to  forcing  an  eight-hour  law  through  Con 
gress  under  threat  of  the  labor  leaders  to  tie  up  long  lines 
of  railroads,  opinion  was  divided  as  to  who  was  most  to 
blame,  the  strikers  for  their  contemplated  crime  against 
the  country,  or  the  president  in  lowering  the  honor  and 
dignity  of  the  nation  by  cowardly  submission.  In  work 
ing  the  measure  through  Congress  the  president  displayed 
his  usual  pedagogic  spirit,  and  his  class  that  of  good  boys 
obedient. 

A  petition  enjoining  the  federal  district  attorney  and 
labor  leaders  from  putting  the  Adamson  eight-hour  bill 
into  effect  was  filed  in  the  federal  district  court  of  Kansas 
city,  in  the  name  of  the  Atchison,  Topeka,  and  Santa  Fe 


THE    AUTOCRACY    OF   LABOR  217 

railway.  The  bill  recites  the  circumstances  surrounding 
the  passage  of  the  Adamson  law  and'  claims  that  it  is  a  mere 
arbitrary  increase  in  wages.  The  law,  says  the  bill,  is 
unconstitutional,  and  void  because  it  is  not  a  regulation 
of  interstate  commerce,  that  it  is  a  mere  experiment  in 
tended  as  a  basis  for  further  legislation;  that  it  deprives 
the  company  of  its  liberty  of  contract  and  right  of  prop 
erty  without  due  process  of  law,  and  that  it  is  unworkable. 
Mr  Ripley  of  the  Santa  Fe  declared  that  Congress,  hastily 
acting  under  a  threat  of  four  leaders  of  labor  organiza 
tions,  enacted  a  so-called  eight-hour  law,  which  is  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  an  advance  of  twenty  to  twenty-five  per 
cent  in  the  wages  of  the  best  paid  men  in  the  railway 
service.  It  is  only  fair  to  our  employees  and  the  public 
to  say  that  the  Atchison,  Topeka,  and  Santa  Fe  railway 
does  not  intend  to  comply  with  the  law  except  as  and  when 
ordered  by  the  court  of  last  resort. 

' '  Should  the  courts  finally  decide  that  the  increase  must 
be  paid  there  will  be  an  immediate  demand  from  the  re 
maining  classes  of  labor,  resulting  in  entire  inability  to 
pay  without  heavy  increases  in  rates  to  be  paid  by  the 
public  especially  the  farming  class." 

Farmers  as  a  rule  were  strongly  opposed  both  to 
the  law  and  to  the  manner  of  its  enactment.  It  was  sim 
ply  a  further  and  wholly  uncalled  for  tax  upon  the  people, 
made  by  a  president  too  proud  to  know  anything  of  busi 
ness. 

Here  is  the  farmer's  view  of  the  situation  by  Henry  N 
Pope,  president  of  the  association  of  state  presidents  of 
the  farmers  union.  The  farmers  stand  for  a  fair  wage 
to  both  labor  and  capital  engaged  in  handling  the  prod 
ucts  of  the  soil  from  the  time  they  leave  the  hands  of 
the  farmers  until  they  reach  the  consumer.  This  applies 
not  only  to  transportation,  but  to  all  industries  engaged 
in  serving  the  agricultural  interests .  of  the  nation. 

"If  the  government  is  going  to  fix  wages  for  any  one 
class  of  railroad  employees  it  should  fix  them  for  all 


218  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

classes,  and  if  it  has  powers  to  increase  wages  it  must  have 
power  to  decrease  rates,  and  Congress  should  review  the 
comparative  inequalities  between  the  different  classes  of 
railway  employees  and  make  such  adjustments  as  wisdom 
dictates  and  do  it  without  fear  or  favor.  I  want  to  make 
a  special  plea  for  the  350,000  section  hands  who  walk 
their  beats  in  storm  and  rain,  and  whose  brawn  and  brain 
make  possible  our  great  transportation  systems.  Their 
compensation  is  not  sufficient  to  feed  and  clothe  their  fami 
lies,  and  their  children  are  sentenced  by  American  civili 
zation  to  a  life  of  ignorance  and  poverty.  Next  to  them 
is  that  class  of  underpaid  shopmen  and  others  whose  loy 
alty  and  faithfulness  to  the  hand  that  feeds  them  and 
whose  consideration  for  the  public  welfare  entitles  them 
to  recognition  by  Congress.  And  last,  but  by  no  means 
least,  there  is  one  class  of  citizens  whose  condition  is  worse 
than  that  of  the  most  lowly  railroad  laborer,  and  that  is 
the  farmer.  We  find  the  highest  paid  laborers  in  the 
world,  making  three  times  more  money  than  farmers, 
demanding  a  25  per  cent  increase  and  Congress  hastening 
to  their  relief.  This  increase  must  in  the  end  rest  upon 
the  backs  of  the  farmers,  and  will  reduce  their  incomes 
while  increasing  their  hours  of  labor." 

Thus  it  is  that  now  while  the  British  parliament  de 
clares  strikes  illegal,  the  American  Congress  bows  before 
the  blackmail  of  the  labor ites  who  threaten  to  tie  up  the 
nation's  industries  unless  their  demand  is  complied  with. 

The  depth  of  national  degradation  and  humiliation  is 
reached  when  a  band  of  labor  leaders,  with  the  help  of  a 
craven  Congress,  accomplishes  the  coercion  of  the  United 
States  to  yield  its  sovereignty  under  threat  of  criminal 
disaster. 

They  have  abundance  of  money,  these  pirates  of  indus 
try,  wrung  from  the  poor  toilers  as  they  call  them,  for 
either  good  or  evil  purposes ;  and  it  must  be  admitted  that 


THE    AUTOCRACY    OF   LABOR  219 

in  the  legal  profession  money  will  buy  the  most  effective 
talent  for  evil  purposes. 

As  a  strike  fund,  that  is  to  say  a  fund  to  enable  the 
workingman  to  fight  his  employer,  a  fund  drawn  from 
the  laborer  to  enable  the  labor  lords  to  fight  their  fellow 
citizens,  to  fight  those  from  whom  they  derive  most  of  the 
blessings  of  life,  the  labor  leaders  manage  to  gather  from 
the  toilers  and  hold  from  ten  to  twenty  millions  of  dollars. 
This  does  not  speak  well  for  a  government,  that  it  should 
be  necessary  for  the  toilers  to  maintain  a  coterie  of  the 
worst  men  in  the  country  to  secure  for  them  common 
justice. 

The  railroad  commission  works  well  in  regulating  pub 
lic  utilities,  why  not  give  it  charge  of  labor  interests  as 
well? 

Strange  indeed  that  the  influential  business  men  of  a 
great  American  city,  should  sit  quietly  by  and  see  the  vital 
interests  of  their  city  destroyed,  its  brilliant  prospects 
wrecked  by  bad  men,  who  have  no  interests  at  stake  and 
care  for  nothing  but  to  increase  their  usurped  power  and 
ill-gotten  gains. 

And  strangest  of  all  that  the  enterprising  and  progres 
sive  people  of  San  Francisco,  where  the  evil  rages  highest 
should  so  tamely  submit  to  the  infamy. 

"San  Francisco  is  perhaps  the  strongest  union-labor 
town  in  the  United  States,"  are  the  words  in  which  E.  G. 
Lowry  records  our  disgrace  in  Collier's. 

The  employers  of  labor  in  San  Francisco  should  unite  in 
an  agreement  that  a  walk-out  should  mean  a  stay  out,  which 
might  in  some  degree  help  to  check  the  exodus  of  industries 
to  new  quarters  across  the  bay  or  elsewhere  where  labor  con 
ditions  are  less  fatal  to  manufacturers.  For  unless  some 
thing  is  done  to  check  the  arrogance  and  insolence  of  these 
pests  of  progress  the  economic  future  of  this  city  is  beyond 
control. 

In  conclusion  we  may  take  this  for  our  heart's  consola 
tion,  that  labor  unionism  of  the  old  dominant,  dynamite 


220  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

stamp  is  doomed.  That  or  the  United  States  must  go,  and 
of  the  two  the  latter  is  the  stronger.  It  is  the  fate  of  radical 
unrighteousness  to  fall  through  acts  emanating  from  its  own 
ignorance  and  intemperance,  and  it  is  plainly  to  be  seen 
that  the  labor  leaders  have  passed  the  limit,  and  that  their 
influence  is  on  the  downward  grade.  In  the  sky  above  us 
it  is  written  in  letters  of  fire  that  neither  capital  nor  labor 
shall  rule  America,  that  we  will  have  a  government  by  the 
people  for  the  people  or  no  government  at  all. 

Reputable  cities  will  not  always  be  satisfied  with  a  char 
latan  or  a  labor-leader  for  mayor,  and  low-grade  blatant 
supervisors  with  subservient  police  and  judges.  For  of 
what  use  are  laws  if  the  courts  will  not  enforce  them? 
Of  what  use  are  credits  and  contracts  in  the  absence  of 
honesty  and  integrity,  without  which  neither  capital  nor 
labor  nor  wages  would  long  hold  sway?  A  city  so  ruled 
reflects  upon  the  character,  intelligence,  and  refinement  of 
the  citizens,  for  a  decent  community  will  not  tolerate  an 
indecent  government. 


CHAPTER  X 

MUNICIPAL  RULE  AND  MISRULE 

1VTEVER  a  state  had  a  better  government  than  Califor- 
1  \|  iiia  in  these  latter  days.  Never  a  better  man  gov 
erned  a  state  than  Hiram  Johnson.  Constitutionally  honest, 
open  and  direct  in  all  his  ways,  with  surpassing  ability  and 
endurancej  we  search  in  vain  the  pages  of  history  for  his 
superior. 

Never  a  state  has  there  been  some  of  whose  towns,  cities, 
and  counties  were  worse  governed  than  may  be  found  in 
California.  In  some  of  our  municipalities  there  are  as 
earnest,  honest,  conscientious,  and  patriotic  men  at  the  head 
of  affairs  as  may  be  found  in  the  world;  in  others  there 
are  as  great  rascals  as  ever  went  unhanged.  When  towns 
men  are  bad  they  are  very  bad,  worse  than  the  demogogues 
of  the  cities,  because  in  the  cities  office-holders  are  more  in 
evidence,  more  closely  watched  and  the  people  are  less 
afraid  and  less  stupid.  Where  the  town  officers  and  the 
county  supervisors  are  mainly  self-seeking  designing  men 
it  is  almost  impossible  for  a  newly  elected  incumbent  to 
retain  office  with  honesty.  At  the  same  time  in  every  large 
city  is  a  coterie  of  professional  law-breakers,  conspicuous 
among  which  are  the  labor-leaders,  who  if  not  watched  and 
frustrated  in  their  evil  efforts  would  take  possession  of  the 
place. 

Consider  the  disgraceful  spectacle  of  an  otherwise 
charming  place  resting  under  the  incubus  of  misrule,  un 
der  the  influence  of  ill-balanced  minds,  of  men  either  stupid 
in  their  ignorance  and  inexperience  or  downright  evil- 
minded,  or  both. 

221 


222  IN   THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

I  know  a  place  highly  favored  by  the  gods,  but  so 
marred  by  man  that  few  self-respecting  persons  will  dwell 
there.  The  fools  and  fanatics  who  run  politics  drain  the 
revenue  for  indirect  purposes,  one  man  raking  in  about 
half  the  income  for  his  own  plethoric  pocket. 

In  such  a  place  broken  down  men  and  women  come 
from  abroad  seeking  something  cheap,  and  impecunious 
citizens  move  out  of  their  houses  to  give  them  room 
at  half  its  worth.  Meanwhile  designing  financiers  come 
to  the  front,  get  possession  of  politics  and  rob  right 
and  left,  permitting  office  holders  to  draw  pay  at  two, 
three,  or  four  times  the  usual  rate  in  return  for  assistance 
in  their  rascalities;  so  that  the  owner  of  realty  who  has 
spent  liberally  for  promised  public  improvements,  and 
would  willingly  spend  more  were  it  not  that  sharks  stand 
ready  to  appropriate  whatever  falls  within  their  reach, 
feels  constrained  to  retire.  The  consequence  is  that  these 
overruling  spirits  prevent  progress  by  assessing  property 
at  more  than  it  will  sell  for,  with  a  tax  rate  four  times 
higher  than  in  other  places  having  four  times  as  much  to 
show  for  it  in  the  way  of  public  improvements  and  other 
advantages. 

In  another  town,  whose  people  have  a  conscience  with 
some  sense  of  decency,  iniquitous  measures,  brought  for 
ward  by  a  corrupt  board  of  supervisors,  under  the  auspices 
of  a  time-serving  mayor,  are  defeated. 

Boosters  make  a  merit  of  boosting  and  of  sham  a  god, 
which  only  displays  their  mental  and  moral  delinquency. 
A  community  where  falsity  is  praised  and  none  to  criticise 
or  speak  the  truth  is  a  community  of  cads  or  cadavers. 
There  is  nothing  gained  by  lies  and  misrepresentation,  even 
when  made  with  the  most  patriotic  motives. 

The  dealings  of  public  officers  should  be  characterized 
by  fairness.  It  is  not  fair,  for  example,  after  giving,  for  a 
consideration  paid,  and  improvements  and  taxes  to  be  paid, 
a  franchise  for  a  railroad,  and  permit  jitneys  to  come  for 
ward  and  despoil  the  railway  owners  of  their  privileges  and 


MUNICIPAL    RULE    AND    MISRULE          223 

property  by  running  parallel  to  their  lines,  over  the  most 
prolific  part  of  their  route,  and  taking  from  them  the  cream 
of  the  business. 

In  the  larger  cities  municipal  railroads  are  quite  profit 
able,  but  too  often  their  manipulators  allow  but  little  of  it 
to  go  toward  the  much-needed  extension  of  lines. 

The  city  of  Dayton,  Ohio,  with  a  population  of  140,000 
was  one  of  the  first  to  adopt  the  short  ballot  plan,  when  in 
1914  a  city  manager  took  charge  at  an  annual  salary  of 
$12,500.  Under  the  Dayton  plan  the  people  elect  the  coun 
cil  or  commission  of  five  members,  the  commission  hires  a 
city  manager,  and  the  city  manager  appoints  the  depart 
ment  heads.  The  commissioners  are  nominated  by  petition 
and  election  on  a  non-partisan  ballot  by  a  primary  and  a 
final  election  for  a  four  years  term.  Two  are  chosen  every 
two  years. 

Conditions  at  the  time  the  new  plan  went  into  effect 
were  generally  bad.  There  was  no  serious  corruption,  but 
general  looseness  and  inefficiency  prevailed.  Politicians 
were  in  jobs  where  experts  were  needed,  and  each  depart 
ment  ran  itself.  There  was  no  orderly  budget  procedure 
or  financial  control.  There  was  a  staggering  bonded  debt, 
over  $6,000,000,  and  a  floating  debt  of  unpaid  bills  and  ex 
penditures  in  excess  of  income  of  $125,000.  There  was  a 
red-light  district;  there  was  an  insufficient  water  supply; 
no  ash  or  rubbish  collection  and  only  partial  garbage  collec 
tion;  the  public  health  was  neglected;  the  poor  and  un 
fortunate  were  being  badly  cared  for;  drunks  were  jailed 
again  and  again ;  loan  sharks  were  unhampered ;  public 
nursing  overlapped;  sanitation  ordinances  were  not  en 
forced,  and  general  distrust  of  the  municipal  government 
and  its  officers  prevailed. 

All  these  evils  have  been  wiped  out.  A  certified  public 
accountant  was  appointed  head  of  the  department  of 
finance,  and  he  speedily  brought  order  out  of  the  confusion, 
and  a  financial  control  so  perfect  that  the  manager  knows 
at  the  close  of  every  day  the  exact  state  of  the  municipal 


224  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

funds  and  commitments.  The  position  of  purchasing  agent 
was  created.  It  saved  $33,000  over  former  prices  in  1914 
and  more  than  that  in  1915.  All  municipal  supplies  from 
lead  pencils  to  fire  engines  were  standardized,  bought  whole 
sale,  and  at  the  most  favorable  time  of  year. 

All  the  other  departments  show  remarkable  reforms. 
The  cost  of  garbage  collection  has  been  reduced  from  $2.49 
to  $1.60  a  ton,  and  a  new  reduction  plant,  built  by  city 
labor  without  a  contractor  at  a  cost  of  $55,000,  brings  in 
net  profits  of  $17,000  a  year.  The  city  now,  through  its 
welfare  department,  assumes  charge  of  all  nursing;  it  has 
almost  doubled  the  number  of  sanitary  inspections ;  it  gives 
legal  aid  to  the  poor,  and  it  has  driven  the  loan  shark  out 
of  town.  Vacant  lots  have  been  turned  into  gardens,  and 
nine  new  playgrounds  have  been  opened.  A  special  effort, 
attended  by  great  success,  has  been  made  in  the  utilization 
and  reformation  of  drunks. 

The  death  rate  for  infants  has  been  reduced  from  124 
per  thousand  to  87.2.  The  general  death  rate  has  been  re 
duced  from  15.7  per  thousand  to  13.  The  red-light  district 
has  been  closed. 

The  reforms  accomplished  furnish  ample  proof  of  the 
efficacy  of  the  short  ballot  in  remedying  municipal  evils. 
Municipal  politics  are  rendered  so  simple  that  no  politicians 
are  needed  to  help  the  citizenship  to  its  civic  work. 

San  Francisco,  by  no  means  the  worst  governed  city 
in  the  world,  pays,  say  $30,000,000  annual  expenses  of  gov 
ernment.  There  are  business  men  who  would  assume  the 
task  and  insure  better  results  for  two-thirds  of  that  amount. 

City  managers,  that  is  to  say  an  executive  selected  by 
directors,  is  coming  more  and  more  in  vogue  every  year. 
Were  this  system  applied  by  the  general  government  we 
might  have  better  rule  at  half  the  cost;  we  might  have  a 
president  we  could  depend  upon,  one  educated  in  the  art  of 
ruling,  one  not  boastful  of  his  ignorance  of  business.  "In 
Cleveland,"  says  the  Chicago  Engineering  and  Contracting, 
11  a  nominating  committee  appointed  by  fifty  civic  organiza- 


MUNICIPAL   RULE    AND    MISRULE          225 

tions  has  just  met  to  consider  the  selection  of  fifteen  men 
to  investigate  the  city-manager  plan.  The  Cleveland  Press 
urges  a  change  in  the  city  charter  to  enable  the  city  to  adopt 
the  modern  method  of  managing  a  city  like  a  stock  com 
pany."  It  says  that  the  conduct  of  city  affairs  should  be 
in  the  hands  of  a  thoroughly  trained'  and  well  tried  mana 
ger,  chosen  not  for  a  definite  period,  but  to  hold  office  as 
long  as  he  does  his  work  well.  At  last  the  American  public 
begins  to  see  that  periodic  selection  of  councilmen  and  may 
ors  by  election  is  a  poor  way  of  getting  good  municipal 
government.  Imagine  a  railroad  system  operated  under 
the  direction  of  men  selected  anew  every  two  or  four  years 
by  popular  vote.  The  glib  speaker,  the  sweet  smiler,  the 
hearty  hand-gripper,  would  then  have  a  better  chance  of 
being  president  of  the  railroad  than  the  man  who  had  spent 
all  his  life  studying  and  practising  railway  construction 
and  operation.  The  fact  is  that  the  entire  system  of  rep 
resentative  government,  in  which  representation  comes 
solely  through  elections,  is  an  uneconomic  system,  and  is 
destined  shortly  to  be  changed.'' 

At  my  request  Professor  Thomas  H.  Reed,  city  manager 
of  San  Jose,  California,  presents  his  views  upon  the  subject 
as  follows: 

1 '  James  Bryce  in  the  American  Commonwealth,  the  first 
edition  of  which  appeared  only  a  little  more  than  thirty 
years  ago,  declared  that  city  government  was  our  one  con 
spicuous  political  failure.  No  writer  of  discrimination 
would  repeat  that  phrase  today.  Out  of  the  confused  med 
ley  of  inefficiency  and  corruption  which  Bryce  saw,  we 
have  by  a  definite  process  of  experimentation  evolved  stable 
and  decent  forms  of  municipal  government.  While  muni 
cipal  governments  in  Great  Britain  and  on  the  continent  of 
Europe  have  remained  fixed  in  the  molds  into  which  they 
were  run  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  we 
have  been  changing  the  municipal  constitution  with  almost 
kaleidoscopic  rapidity. 


226  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

* '  To  understand  the  principles  underlying  these  changes 
and  to  grasp  the  resultant  tendency  of  so  much  movement, 
we  must  briefly  remind  ourselves  of  the  chief  cause  of  the 
failure  of  our  earlier  municipal  institutions.  Underlying 
the  apparent  variousness  of  our  early  city  charters  is  one 
staring  fact,  common  to  them  all,  the  failure  to  fix  definite 
responsibility  for  the  conduct  of  the  city  government.  They 
were  all  fundamentally  influenced  by  the  check  and  balance 
theory  of  our  state  and  national  institutions.  In  the  con 
fusion  of  mayors,  two-chamber  councils,  elective  adminis 
trative  officers,  council  committees,  state-appointed  boards 
and  commissions,  the  unhappy  citizen  could  hardly  fail  to 
be  at  a  loss  as  to  the  why  and  wherefore  of  his  government. 
There  was  endless  opportunity  for  one  official  to  hide  be 
hind  another.  The  long  list  of  obscure  offices  to  be  filled 
by  popular  election  supplied  the  best  of  opportunities  for 
the  political  slate-makers.  It  has  long  been  a  well-known 
fact  that  crime  and  darkness  go  together.  This  is  no  less 
true  of  the  political  crimes  of  the  gangster  and  grafter  than 
of  those  of  the  thief  and  the  thug.  The  complication  of 
municipal  administration  furnished  the  shadows  in  which 
political  crime  might  be  safely  perpetrated. 

"The  first  efforts  to  escape  from  this  situation  found 
expression  in  increased  power  for  the  mayor.  It  was  very 
natural  for  the  people  to  turn,  in  the  city  as  they  have  done 
in  the  state  and  nation,  away  from  the  legislature  to  the 
elected  executive  as  their  peculiar  representative.  This 
tendency  has  been  very  marked  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
century.  Its  culmination  was  perhaps  reached  in  the  Bos 
ton  charter  of  1909.  By  virtue  of  this  charter  the  mayor 
is  practically  an  elective  dictator.  He  makes  all  appoint 
ments,  and  has  complete  charge  of  the  executive  branch  of 
the  government.  He  has  the  sole  power  of  initiating  prop 
ositions  for  the  expenditures  of  money.  He  has  a  veto  over 
the  acts  of  the  city  council.  The  council  may  decrease  an 
appropriation  recommended  by  the  mayor  but  cannot  in 
crease  one.  Indeed  there  is  very  little  to  be  done  with 


MUNICIPAL   RULE    AND   MISRULE          227 

the  Boston  city  council  except  to  put  it  out  of  pain.  This 
form  of  government  has  given  Boston  much  more  satis 
factory  results  than  the  more  complicated  one  which  pre- 
ceeded  it,  although  it  is  engineered  by  the  same  class  of  men 
who  formerly  dominated  its  politics.  The  clear  and  definite 
concentration  of  power  and  responsibility  in  the  hands  of 
a  single  official  inevitably  makes  for  a  higher  class  of  ad 
ministration.  One  defect  of  this  form  of  government  is 
that  between  elections  there  is  no  effiective  check  upon  the 
vagaries  and  whims  of  the  executive.  Furthermore,  there 
is  no  assurance  that  the  man  elected  by  the  people  to  be 
their  ruler  will  possess  any  special  qualification  for  his  task. 
The  only  thing  which  a  popular  election  demonstrates,  as 
far  as  the  personality  of  the  elected  officer  is  concerned,  is 
that  he  has  a  certain  amount  of  skill  in  getting  himself 
elected.  This  skill  is  obviously  not  the  same  kind  of  skill 
as  that  of  an  efficient  administrator. 

' l  The  second  method  of  escape  from  our  unhappy  muni 
cipal  condition  was  the  commission  form  of  government, 
first  given  prominence  by  its  adoption  in  Galveston,  Texas, 
following  the  flood  of  1900.  Under  this  form  of  govern 
ment  all  the  powers  of  the  city,  legislative  and  administra 
tive  alike,  are  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a  commission  of 
five  men.  Each  of  the  five  is  assigned  to  the  headship  of 
a  department  or  group  of  departments  of  the  city  govern 
ment.  In  their  individual  capacity  they  are  the  working 
executives,  and  in  their  collective  capacity  the  legislature 
of  the  municipality.  This  system,  also,  has  shown  a  clear 
advance  over  the  older  forms  of  city  government.  As  com 
pared  with  them  it  is  simplicity  itself.  It  has  been  very 
widely  adopted  and  no  fair  observer  would  deny  that,  by 
and  large,  it  has  accomplished  much.  It  has  at  least  made 
city  government  really  representative  and  really  responsible 
to  the  people. 

"Perhaps  its  greatest  achievement  has  been  to  convince 
the  American  people  of  the  possibility  of  city  government 
conducted  upon  a  highly  practical  and  efficient  basis.  It 


228  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

has  itself,  however,  fallen  short  of  this  ideal  of  efficiency. 
The  actual  working  heads  of  the  departments  are  not  ex 
perts  but  men  selected  primarily  for  their  representative 
qualities.  The  commission  plan  confuses  as  does  much  of 
our  American  political  thinking,  the  functions  of  repre 
sentation  and  administration.  For  purposes  of  representa 
tion  we  require  laymen,  who  will  reflect  the  real  desires 
of  their  constituents.  They  should  be  something  like  fair 
samples  of  the  community.  They  do  not  require  special 
training  in  the  problems  of  municipal  administration.  It 
should  be  their  function  to  determine  the  policy  of  the  city 
government.  It  should  be  the  function  of  the  adminis 
trator  on  the  other  hand  to  carry  out  that  policy.  He  does 
not  need  to  reflect,  in  his  personal  thinking,  the  wishes 
of  the  community;  he  should,  however,  possess  the  special 
training  and  technical  qualifications  to  enable  him  to  carry 
out  the  policy  laid  down  by  the  representative  in  the  most 
efficient  possible  manner. 

"In  other  words,  he  should  be  an  expert.  Popular 
election  only  accidentally  produces  experts.  The  result  is, 
therefore,  that  commission  government  gives  us  adminis 
tration  by  amateurs,  and  in  general,  mediocre  amateurs. 
The  salries  paid  are  too  small  to  attract  really  capable  men, 
except  in  rare  instances. 

"Another  defect  of  the  commission  form  of  government 
is  that  we  have  a  five-headed  executive.  In  America  we 
have  never  been  able  to  accomplish  good  results  with  a 
multiple  executive.  Another  defect  which  has  manifested 
itself  is  that  the  commission  as  a  whole  is  not  a  competent 
critic  of  the  conduct  of  its  individual  members. 

' '  The  third  and  last  phase  of  modern  municipal  reform 
is  the  city-manager  form  of  government.  It  has  grown  nat 
urally  out  of  the  commission  system.  The  resemblance  of 
the  commission  of  five  men  to  the  board  of  directors  of  a 
corporation  naturally  suggested,  instead  of  having  the  in 
dividual  commissioners  execute  the  city  policy  the  em 
ployment  of  a  manager  to  do  it  for  them.  The  manager 


MUNICIPAL   RULE    AND    MISRULE          229 

bears  the  same  relation  to  the  council  or  commission  that 
the  manager  of  a  private  corporation  bears  to  its  board  of 
directors.  He  suggests  policies,  it  is  true,  but  the  council 
determines  upon  their  execution.  When  it  has  spoken, 
the  manager  as  a  ministerial  officer  carries  out  their  be 
hests.  The  manager,  relatively  speaking,  is  well  paid.  He 
is  selected  in  every  instance  with  at  least  some  reference 
to  his  possession  of  special  qualifications  for  the  task. 
There  is,  of  course,  no  absolute  certainty  that  the  council 
will  select  an  adequate  and  competent  manager,  but  the 
chances  of  their  doing  so  are  excellent.  The  responsibility 
of  a  high  officer  in  whom  all  the  executive  authority  is 
concentrated  is  a  sobering  one,  and  so-  far  as  we  now  know 
no  council  has  proven  false  to  its  trust  in  this  regard. 

"Under  the  manager  plan  there  is  a  single  head  to  the 
city  and  through  him  the  work  of  all  departments  is  co 
ordinated.  Generally  speaking,  the  men  selected  as  man 
agers  have  been  men  professionally  interested  in  city  man 
agement.  Their  personal  advantage  lies,  not  in  doing  as 
little  as  possible,  in  evading  responsibility  and  in  covering 
up  defects  in  their  administration,  but  in  producing  the 
best  results  for  the  community.  A  manager  will  not  play 
petty  politics  with  the  offices  at  his  disposal  because  he 
knows  that  the  important  thing  for  himself  is  success,  not 
in  holding  his  job,  but  in  doing  his  work.  He  knows  that 
to  lose  his  job  because  he  does  it  well  will  only  mean  ad 
vancement  in  his  profession. 

"The  city-manager  form  of  government  is  not  a  novel 
thing  in  our  experience.  The  private  corporation,  the 
city  school  district  and  most  of  our  great  state  institu 
tions,  such  as  state  universities,  have  a  form  of  organiza 
tion  almost  identical  with  it;  that  is  a  lay  board  acting 
through  a  single  responsible  executive.  The  plan  is  ra 
tional.  It  appeals  everywhere  to  the  sound  sense  of  busi 
ness  men.  The  only  class  bitterly  opposed  to  it  is  the 
professional  politicians,  who  find  themselves  out  of  a  job 
because  of  its  introduction.  One  should  not  expect  for 


230  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

it  quite  the  same  definite  and  precise  efficiency  which  we 
find  in  the  better  class  of  private  corporations.  Public- 
business  must  always  be  conducted,  not  only  so  as  to  pro 
duce  a  pleasing  result,  but  so  as  to  produce  it  in  a  pleasing 
way. 

"The  city  manager  has  a  more  difficult  task  than  the 
corporation  manager  because  he  must  live  with  his  stock 
holders.  The  stockholders  in  a  private  corporation  are 
satisfied  if  their  dividend  checks  arrive  with  sufficient  regu 
larity  ;  the  stockholders  in  a  municipal  corporation  demand 
a  wide  variety  of  consideration.  It  is  possible,  however, 
under  the  manager  form  of  government  to  use  sound  busi 
ness  methods  and  to  make  public  business  as  efficient  as 
public  business  ever  can  be. 

"The  saving  of  our  cities  from  governmental  waste  is 
one  of  the  worthiest  tasks  of  this  later  day.  In  our  effort 
to  prepare  our  country  for  the  eventualities  of  peace  or 
war,  nothing  is  more  important  than  the  elimination  of 
gratuitous  waste.  The  manager  plan  can  do  this  for  the 
cities.  By  extending  it  to  county  government,  the  weakest 
and  most  wasteful  unit  in  our  governmental  system  may 
be  reformed. 

"It  is  sometimes  said  that  it  will  not  be  applicable  to 
large  cities  or  other  large  units.  It  should  be  remembered, 
however,  that  no  unit  of  government  is  too  large  to  have 
a  head.  The  difference  between  a  large  organization  and 
a  small  organization  is  not  the  presence  in  one  and  the 
absence  in  the  other  of  a  capital  extremity.  The  large 
organization  simply  requires  more  sub-heads.  Everywhere 
the  manager  form  of  government  has  been  employed  in 
public  and  private  affairs  it  has  succeeded.  No  city  which 
has  given  it  a  fair  trial  will  ever  give  it  up." 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    DECLINATION    OF    LAW 

THE  acts  of  the  legislature  are  omnipotent ;  the  verdict 
of  the  jury  is  decisive;  the  decision  of  the  court  is 
final. 

The  machinery  for  the  regulating  of  human  conduct, 
the  rectifying  of  human  wrongs  is  more  or  less  imperfect 
in  its  several  parts. 

The  legislature  is  composed  of  men  of  average  honesty 
and  average  ability;  the  jury  is  composed  of  a  mixture 
of  somewhat  more  facile  honesty  and  of  doubtful  ability ; 
the  court  is  an  uncertain  quantity,  and  may  be  differen- 
iated  all  the  way  from  careful  and  conscientious  to  self- 
seeking  and  disreputable. 

The  lawyer  appears  upon  the  scene  not  as  an  advocate 
for  the  right,  but  as  a  special  pleader  for  the  side  that  pays 
him  for  his  services.  Ostensibly  an  officer  of  the  court, 
in  reality  he  is  lord  high  executioner  of  the  court,  which 
he  wins  to  his  views  with  an  oily  tongue,  or  intimidates 
with  his  axe  of  office,  sharpened  by  precedent  and  statu 
tory  and  constitutional  law.  He  is  a  manipulator  of  the 
court,  which  he  uses  as  a  tool  for  the  accomplishment  of 
his  skill  in  winning  by  soft  words,  in  sentimentalizing,  in 
exciting  sympathy  or  playing  upon  prejudice,  in  brow 
beating  bullying  excoriating  and  insulting  witnesses. 
Upon  judge  and  jury  he  plays  as  upon 'a  pipe,  and  by  his 
ability  to  make  them  dance  to  his  tunes  is  measured  his 
success. 

Under  such  conditions  the  litigant's  chance  for  secur 
ing  justice  does  not  weigh  heavily  on  the  favorable  side. 

231 


232  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

Of  all  potentialities  courts  of  law  and  party  politics  are 
most  erratic.  Even  money  will  not  always  make  the  mare 
go.  And  although  our  laws  may  not  have  been  made  with 
an  eye  toward  defeating  the  ends  of  justice,  much  of  the 
practice  in  courts  seems  to  point  in  that  direction. 

Said  a  blackmail  lawyer  the  other  day  who  dismissed 
a  suit  for  a  payment  of  $500,  "I  could  kick  myself  for 
not  asking  $5,000, — might  just  as  well  have  had  it," — 
which  is  the  ethics  of  the  law  in  ordinary  practice.  Courts 
of  law  are  too  often  courts  of  inquisition,  to  thumb-screw 
as  much  as  possible  out  of  its  victims. 

It  is  said  that  Patrick  Calhoun  bribed  the  supervisors 
and  debauched  the  town.  If  it  were  so  it  was  a  grievous 
fault  and  grievously  did  he  suffer  for  it,  far  more  griev 
ously  than  the  labor  leaders  and  others  who  most  profited 
by  it,  and  who  are  now  flaunting  the  money  secured  by 
their  hold-up  of  the  United  Railroads  in  the  face  of  decent 
citizens.  Calhoun  claims  that  he  has  now  but  five  dollars 
left  of  the  $14,000,000  he  was  worth  five  years  ago.  Pat 
never  had  $14,000,000,  nor  half  that  amount,  and  his  fear 
and  dread  of  the  state  prison,  to  escape  which  as  was 
alleged  he  paid  out  money  so  lavishly,  was  needless  so 
long  as  his  good  friends  from  the  south  were  among  the 
judges. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  Pat?  Pat  is  a  good  fellow 
enough,"  a  learned  judge,  whose  legs  were  so  often  under 
Pat's  mahogany,  used  to  say. 

Few  will  deny  in  these  latter  days  the  profession  of 
law,  with  its  attendant  law  courts,  judges,  and  juries  is 
not  growing  in  honor  and  respectability  in  the  eyes  of 
good  citizens.  Here  as  elsewhere  at  every  turn  comes 
the  man  before  the  measure.  Few  will  deny  that  in  public 
esteem  the  practice  of  law  has  fallen,  and  is  still  on  the 
downward  grade.  We  used  to  say,  "I  love  my  country 
and  respect  the  law."  We  now  say,  "I  love  my  country 
and  respect  the  law  when  it  is  respectable." 


THE    DECLINATION   OF    LAW  233 

What  shall  we  say  of  placing  at  the  head  of  a  law 
school  to  train  boys  in  that  mental  equipoise  best  .befit 
ting  jurisprudence  and  the  noble  profession  of  the  law 
a  man  like  Mr.  Taft,  so  full  of  narrow  prejudice  as  when 
president  to  refuse  Arizona  admission  as  a  state  with  a 
clause  in  her  constitution  permitting  the  recall  of  judges, 
a  threat  as  unwarrantable  as  it  was  contemptible. 

If  law  is  the  exact  science  its  disciples  claim  for  it, 
how  does  it  happen  that  even  in  the  highest  tribunal  of 
the  nation  the  judges  so  often  disagree?  If  the  absolute 
predominates  throughout,  how  can  differences  arise?  Is 
the  fault  in  the  law  or  in  the  judges?  As  Jean  Jacques 
Rousseau  said  long  ago,  "It  is  vain  that  we  aspire  at  lib 
erty  under  the  protection  of  the  laws.  Laws !  Where  are 
they?  And  where  are  they  respected?  Wherever  you  have 
directed  your  steps,  you  have  seen  concealed  under  this 
sacred  name  nothing  but  self-interest  and  human  passions. 
But  the  eternal  laws  of  nature  and  of  order  are  still  in 
being.  They  supply  the  place  of  positive  laws  in  the  eye  of 
the  man  of  prudence ;  they  are  written  in  the  inmost  recess 
of  his  heart  by  the  hands  of  reason  and  conscience;  it  is 
to  these  he  ought  to  submit  in  order  to  be  free. ' ' 

The  jury  system  is  a  relic  of  feudalism,  like  hereditary 
rulership  and  state  religion,  and  with  them  should  disap 
pear  with  the  coming  of  democratic  ideals. 

There  are  members  of  the  profession  yet  living  who 
so  cling  to  their  ancient  superstitions  as  still  to  maintain 
that  the  practice  of  law  is  a  noble  occupation.  Nor  would 
I  deny  it;  ignoble  deeds  are  sometimes  nobly  done.  The 
office  of  hangman  is  not  noble  but  necessary,  and  in  a 
certain  sense  necessary  work  is  never  ignoble. 

Two  years  ago  in  my  Retrospection  I  promulgated  the 
blasphemy  that  labor  strikes  are  a  crime,  and  should  be 
made  such  by  law;  that  it  is  a  crime  for  the  masters  of 
a  class  of  workingmen  to  hold  up  for  blackmail  an  entire 
community;  that  the  Europeans  who  had  endured  the 
infliction  for  a  hundred  years,  when  they  could  stop  it 


234  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

at  a  moment  if  they  would,  seemed  afraid  to  do  so,  and 
Americans  followed  their  example.  Now  it  may  be  seen 
in  various  quarters  that  the  law  is  veering  toward  its  duty 
in  this  regard,  particularly  in  places  where  the  laborites 
have  overstepped  the  bounds  of  discretion,  and  inflicted 
unbearable  blows  upon  the  progress  of  states  and  the 
nation.  The  labor  lords  bluster  and  threaten  a  resort  to 
arms,  to  their  favorite  weapons,  lead-pipe,  gun-play,  and 
dynamite,  which  the  quicker  they  employ  the  better  for 
all  concerned,  and  so  have  it  out. 

Taking  it  all  in  all  it  cannot  be  denied  that  in  our 
courts  of  law  there  is  a  preponderating  influence  inimical 
to  the  cause  of  justice.  The  most  eminent  and  highest 
paid  legal  talent  is  employed  not  in  securing  the  right, 
but  in  defending  the  wrong.  For  justice  if  given  a  free 
course  will  take  care  of  itself,  while  the  ways  of  indirec 
tion  require  the  tricks  of  the  trade  to  save  their  votaries 
from  the  merited  penalties. 

Usually  the  tendency  of  the  judge  leans  toward  the 
popular  side;  he  must  consider  his  own  interests  before 
the  interests  of  litigants  or  the  demands  of  justice.  Among 
the  jury,  where  are  always  plenty  of  whims  and  false 
reasoning,  if  not  something  worse,  there  are  seldom  absent 
one  with  a  twisted  brain,  one  with  a  grudge  against  the 
lawyer  or  his  client,  or  some  of  those  who  carry  with  them 
class  hatred,  laborites,  socialists,  prohibitionists,  religion 
ists, — all  else  failing  there  is  quite  sure  to  turn  up  that 
unfortunate  individual  "whose  luck  it  is  always  to  get 
on  a  jury  with  eleven  damned  fools." 

The  profession  of  the  law  tends  to  the  prostitution  of 
manhood,  to  a  sacrifice  of  all  the  finer  feelings  and  senti 
ments  of  humanity,  to  cold-blooded  selfishness,  to  a  disre 
gard  of  the  right  of  others  and  a  contempt  for  justice. 
In  subservience  to  the  rules  of  their  order,  or  for  personal 
gain,  the  majority  of  lawyers  will  lay  aside  truth  honor 


THE    DECLINATION    OF    LAW  235 

and  integrity,  or  whatever  stands  in  the  way  of  achieving 
their  purpose,  good  or  bad. 

There  are  prominent  lawyers  who  know  law  in  limit 
less  tomes,  and  employ  it  alike  for  the  benefit  of  the  right 
eous  and  the  wicked,  for  a  consideration,  but  who  lack 
common  sense  and  common  honesty,  who  lack  all  sense 
of  right  or  wrong  for  use  in  their  profession,  all  sense  of 
justice  or  humanity  which  are  walled  out  from  any  inter 
ference  with  the  expectant  fee. 

Our  courts  of  law  are  gangrene  in  the  body  politic,  a 
disgrace  to  civilization  and  a  dishonor  to  the  state. 

There  is  no  part  of  our  political  or  social  system  that 
needs  radical  revision  so  much  as  the  department  of  jus 
tice.  Few  outside  of  the  profession  will  deny  that  as  they 
now  exist  and  operate  they  are  a  detriment  to  human  prog 
ress  and  a  disgrace  to  human  intelligence.  And  further, 
that  as  time  passes  and  need  presses  they  grow  worse  rather 
than  better,  lawyers  and  judges  alike  falling  still  deeper 
in  disrepute;  while  as  general  consideration  increases,  and 
men  begin  to  see  and  think  somewhat  for  themselves,  the 
impedimenta  attending  the  practice  of  law  appear  to  them 
more  and  more  disreputable,  senseless,  and  absurd.  And 
they  cannot  but  feel  that  some  simple  and  direct  method 
might  be  devised  for  securing  the  ends  of  justice  to  take 
the  place  of  the  relics  of  medievalism  now  in  vogue. 

What  are  these  impedimenta  that  block  the  course  of 
justice,  and  how  may  they  be  removed?  Is  it  easier  to 
point  out  the  former  than  to  dispel  the  traditions  and 
superstitions  that  overshadow  the  latter.  First  of  all  there 
stands  at  the  portal  of  the  judgment-chamber  the  great 
god  Sham,  to  whom  every  knee  must  bow  and  every  devotee 
send  up  a  prayer.  For  which  acknowledgment,  and  for 
their  further  delectation,  the  beneficent  deity  at  times  and 
in  places  gives  them  gown  and  wig  to  hide  away  the  human 
and  render  them  still  more  hideous  in  the  eyes  of  the 
humble. 

The  judge  enters  and  takes  his  seat.    What  is  he,  and 


236  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

for  what  purpose  there,  and  how  does  he  fulfill  that  pur 
pose  ?  Is  duty  dominant  in  his  thoughts,  the  desire  to  com 
pel  the  right  and  prevent  the  wrong?  By  no  means.  His 
first  consideration  is  himself,  also  his  second,  and  his  third. 
How  will  his  air  and  attitude  strike  those  who  placed  him 
there,  and  what  shall  be  his  course  best  to  retain  that 
place  ?  The  judge  is  human  and  cannot  divorce  his  human 
nature  by  taking  a  seat  upon  the  bench. 

If  he  owes  his  election  to  the  people  direct,  then  in  all 
that  he  does  or  says  the  people  or  party  that  elected  him, 
and  may  elect  him  again  must  be  placated.  If  appointed 
to  office  it  is  the  same,  popular  taste  and  popular  prejudice 
must  ever  be  pacified. 

Then  the  jury  element  comes  in,  which  plays  at  the 
same  time  to  its  own  hand  and  to  the  hand  of  the  judge. 
If  in  the  case  at  trial  the  side  of  right  is  unpopular,  it  is 
easy  for  the  facile  judge  to  let  injustice  take  its  course, 
and  should  its  victims  cry  out  against  it  to  point  to  the 
jury  and  say,  ''They  did  it;  they  are  there  to  determine 
the  facts,  and  if  they  mistake  them,  or  wilfully  misrep 
resent,  how  can  I  help  it?"  So  he  goes  his  way,  a  spine 
less  puppet  of  senseless  formulas,  exonerated  in  his  own 
eyes  at  least,  while  those  who  see  through  it  all,  and  real 
ize  the  infamy,  can  say  nothing,  for  it  is  the  law. 

Well,  what  would  you  have  in  a  judge?  We  should 
have  first  of  all  an  honest  man  of  sound  sense,  one  not 
to  be  diverted  from  a  proper  course  by  the  hallucinations 
of  party  or  precedent;  a  man  of  stern  rectitude,  who  sees 
in  his  court-room  a  hall  of  justice  and  nothing  else,  and 
who  will  not  himself  commit,  nor  allow  the  jury  to  commit 
a  wrong,  though  a  dozen  laws  and  precedents  were  at  hand 
to  support  it.  For  as  a  supreme  judge  of  one  of  our  states 
has  said,  "With  us  a  law  is  not  a  law  that  defeats  the  ends 
of  justice." 

Now  as  to  lawyers,  theoretically  officers  of  the  court, 
who  and  what  are  they,  and  how  do  they  so  behave  as  to 
bring  themselves  more  and  more  into  disrepute  in  the 


THE    DECLINATION   OF    LAW  237 

minds  of  right  thinking  citizens?  First  of  all  their  edu 
cation  is  at  fault.  They  are  taught  the  infamous  doctrine 
that  law  should  ever  precede  justice,  that  justice  must 
ever  occupy  a  subservient  place  in  a  court  of  law,  and 
that  whether  law  or  justice,  or  both  law  and  justice,  stand 
in  the  way,  their  paramount  purpose  is  to  win  their  case, 
and  so  secure  their  fee  and  all  due  honor  and  praise. 

Honesty  is  the  best  policy.  Yes,  but  it  is  not  policy 
we  are  after  just  now,  only  plain  simple  honesty;  that 
and  nothing  else.  What  is  honesty  in  a  lawyer, — doctor, 
a  merchant  ?  Primarily  the  same  in  all ;  to  speak  the  truth, 
using  no  deception.  Specifically,  the  honest  lawyer  can 
not  practise  or  plead  in  a  dishonest  case,  that  is  to  secure 
dishonest  ends;  he  cannot  knowingly  wrong  an  opponent, 
or  an  opponent's  client.  He  will  not  knowingly  clear  a 
criminal,  to  be  again  turned  loose  upon  society.  He  will 
not  strive  to  entrap  a  witness,  or  make  him  speak  other 
than  he  would,  or  than  is  his  intent.  Nor  will  he  villify 
a  respectable  citizen,  by  intimation  or  in  set  speeches  while 
on  the  witness  stand  where  he  can  make  no  reply.  Con 
trary  to  rule  and  legal  ethics,  you  say.  True,  but  it  is 
honesty  we  are  talking  about,  and  not  legal  ethics,  and 
if  your  legal  ethics  are  not  honest,  so  much  the  worse  for 
them  and  for  you.  There  are  some  honest  lawyers. 

An  honest  doctor  after  due  investigation  will  give  you 
honest  treatment,  with  no  pretense  of  curing  the  incurable, 
or  resort  to  useless  measures  in  order  to  gain  more  money ; 
nor  will  he  take  a  case,  and  on  pretense  of  being  called 
away  pass  it  over  to  an  obliging  friend  in  order  that  two 
fees  may  be  secured.  There  are  some  honest  doctors. 

The  honest  merchant  will  not  deceive  his  customer  nor 
try  to  sell  him  what  he  cannot  profitably  use  or  dispose  of. 

In  his  education  truth  and  veracity,  honor  and  integ 
rity  are  eradicated  from  the  curriculum  of  the  young 
lawyer  wherever  they  come  in  contact  with  the  law,  so 
that  in  his  subsequent  practice  there  is  no  subterfuge, 


238  IN   THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

chicane,  trickery,  or  injustice  which  he  may  not  resort  to 
provided  it  comes  within  pale  of  the  law. 

Still  further  the  great  god  Sham  attends  his  devotees 
in  all  their  winding  ways  even  up  to  and  within  the  sacred 
precincts  of  the  highest  tribunal.  What  can  be  more  ab 
surd,  more  absolutely  irrational  and  unnecessary  than  for 
our  appellate  courts  to  occupy  a  period  of  months  or  years 
for  the  process  of  incubation,  a  period  of  months  or  years 
before  they  are  able  to  hatch  out  their  decisions?  As  re 
gards  promptness  and  efficiency  in  the  dispatch  of  busi 
ness  in  our  courts,  we  seem  to  be  as  far  from  correcting 
the  error  of  delinquency  as  when  Hamlet  classed  the  law's 
delays  with  the  whips  and  scorns  of  time,  the  oppressor's 
wrong  and  other  like  calamities.  King  Sham  is  here  at 
hand  again  with  the  pretense  that  the  profundity  of  su 
preme  court  work  makes  it  very  wearing,  makes  three 
hours  a  long  day,  four  days  a  long  week,  and  nine  months 
a  long  year.  Nevertheless,  when  not  long  since  our  fudges 
asked  to  have  their  number  doubled,  they  were  told  to 
double  their  time  and  efforts,  which  would  accomplish  the 
purpose  at  less  cost  to  the  always  overbled  tax-payer. 
Many  judges  work  but  little  over  fifteen  hours  a  week, 
about  the  time  the  premier  of  England,  Lloyd  George, 
devotes  to  the  duties  of  a  single  day,  burdened  as  he  is 
with  the  world's  gravest  responsibilities. 

We  may  go  still  farther  and  say  that  were  our  higher 
courts  to  do  twice  the  work  in  half  the  time  they  would 
even  then  fall  short  of  what  a  good  business  man  would 
accomplish  in  his  daily  vocation.  There  is  no  reason  why 
when  an  appeal  is  taken  the  counsel  on  either  side,  with 
their  authorities,  should  not  appear  at  once  before  the 
higher  court  and  have  the  case  presented  and  decided 
orally  on  the  spot.  This  is  frequently  done  in  England; 
it  is  done  in  many  of  the  world's  most  efficient  tribunals 
every  day.  A  printed  brief,  or  further  elaborate  argu 
ments  attended  by  long  delays  are  pure  humbug,  totally 
unnecessary. 


THE    DECLINATION    OF    LAW  239 

Or  if  they  want  the  brief  give  it  to  them,  but  for  their 
immediate  perusal,  not  to  be  thrown  into  a  drawer  for 
incubation.  Dull  indeed  must  be  the  brain  of  the  judge, 
inefficient  his  education,  sluggish  the  working  of  his  mind 
who  after  an  hour  or  two  of  careful  reading  cannot  render 
his  decision  as  well  as  after  a  month  or  a  year  of  pretense. 
You  think  the  people  do  not  fathom  your  subterfuge,  oh 
most  worshipful  high  chancellors! 

Who  is  the  honest  judge?  Not  the  one  reported  to  me 
the  other  day  as  having  said  to  his  associate,  "You  render 
your  decisions  too  soon ;  it  sets  a  bad  example  for  the  rest 
of  us." 

As  to  the  jury  system,  a  square  look  at  it  shows  that 
under  the  present  regime  it  is  not  only  unnecessary  but 
in  a  large  number  of  cases  it  is  an  absolute  bar  to  justice. 
Twelve  men  are  drawn,  usually  from  the  more  doltish  ele 
ment  of  the  community,  men  whose  minds,  reasonably  or 
logically  are  a  blank,  or  at  best  a  maudlin  mixture  of  preju 
dice  and  puerility,  who  are  supposed  to  be  better  equipped 
for  analyzing  evidence  and  determining  facts,  better  en 
dowed  with  honesty,  integrity,  and  fair-mindedness  than 
the  learned  and  experienced  judge  himself.  If  Sham  is 
a  god  of  the  court,  these  jurymen  are  his  angels,  and  the 
lawyers  who  play  their  own  tunes  upon  them,  his  minis 
ters  of  grace.  To  show  how  justice  itself  regards  as  a 
superfluity  this  box  full  of  ignorance  and  inexperience,  liti 
gants  are  permitted  to  omit  the  jury  if  they  choose.  If 
the  counsel  on  one  side  has  a  bad  case  and  is  an  expert 
pleader,  proficient  in  bamboozling  stupidity  he  will  demand 
a  jury.  He  who  has  a  righteous  cause  before  a  fair-minded 
judge  of  ability  and  integrity  will  avoid  the  disturbing  in 
fluence  of  a  jury  if  possible.  For  whatever  the  merits  of 
the  case  may  be  the  jury  is  as  apt  to  go  wrong  as  right. 

There  was  a  time  back  in  the  days  of  feudalism  when 
from  the  arbitrary  decision  of  the  lord  of  the  serfs,  over 
whom  he  held  the  unquestioned  power  of  life  or  death,  the 
accused  might  be  taken  to  a  trial  by  his  peers,  but  such  con- 


240  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

ditions  no  longer  exist,  though  we  still  cling  to  the  barbar 
ism. 

There  is  no  trouble  whatever  in  applying  a  swift  rem 
edy  to  the  many  various  evils  attending  the  administration 
of  law.  As  regards  the  delay  of  judges  in  carrying  for 
ward  cases  and  in  rendering  decisions,  let  the  lazy  or  pet 
tifogging  judges  be  eliminated.  Those  who  find  the  work 
too  hard  for  them  might  find  relief  in  some  other  occu 
pation,  in  some  position  where  there  is  no  work.  In  Cali 
fornia  we  have  a  practical  example  of  promptness  and 
efficiency  in  the  Railroad  Commission,  whose  jurisdiction 
might  be  extended  to  cover  most  cases  now  going  before 
the  courts. 

Worthless  as  are  our  courts  in  civil  cases  they  are  worse 
if  possible  in  handling  criminals.  In  the  United  States 
there  are  relatively  more  murders  and  felonies  and  fewer 
punishments  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world,  while  in  other 
Anglo-Saxon  countries  these  crimes  are  less  in  number  than 
in  any  other  countries. 

In  the  United  States  there  were  in  1885,  1,808  murders 
or  homicides  and  108  executions ;  in  1904,  8,482  murders  or 
homicides  and  116  executions;  in  1912,  9,152  killings  and 
145  executions ;  in  1913,  8,902  of  the  former  and  88  execu 
tions;  in  1914,  8,251  human  slaughterings  and  74  execu 
tions;  in  1915,  9,230  slaughterings  and  119  executions.  It 
is  stated  that  in  the  city  of  Oakland,  California,  there  were 
in  1915,  9,035  arrests,  and  in  1916,  8,805  arrests. 

From  a  brochure  issued  by  Henry  A.  Foster,  of  the  New 
York  bar,  I  quote  as  follows :  ' l  Has  any  other  nation  laws 
which  its  courts  of  last  resort  characterize  as  a  shelter  to 
the  guilty,  which  has  no  place  in  the  jurisprudence  of  civ 
ilized  and  free  countries  outside  the  domain  of  the  common 
law?  According  to  the  judicial  statistics,  there  were  re 
ported  to  the  police  of  England  and  Wales  during  the  year 
1913,  111  murders  of  persons  aged  more  than  one  year  and 
67  murders  of  infants  of  one  year  or  less.  On  these  178 


THE    DECLINATION   OF   LAW  241 

reported  murders,  67  persons  were  brought  to  trial  for  mur 
der;  there  were  28  convictions  and  death  sentences;  16 
executions;  12  commutations  to  penal  servitude  for  life; 
five  accused  were  found  insane  on  arraignment;  17  were 
found  guilty  but  insane  and  17  were  acquitted. 

"In  1913,  154  manslaughters  were  reported  to  the  Eng 
lish  and  Welsh  police  on  which  136  persons  were  brought 
to  trial,  on  which  trials  there  were  63  convictions  and  sen 
tences.  In  1914  in  England  and  Wales,  55  persons  were 
brought  to  trial  for  murder;  23  were  convicted  and  sen 
tenced  to  death;  14  were  executed;  the  sentences  of  eight 
were  commuted  to  penal  servitude  for  life ;  12  were  found 
guilty  but  insane ;  11  by  jury  and  one  by  court  of  criminal 
appeal ;  six  were  found  insane  on  arraignment  and  14  were 
acquitted  including  one  quashed  conviction  by  court  of 
criminal  appeal.  In  1914,  117  were  brought  to  trial  in 
England  and  Wales  for  manslaughter,  of  which  48  were 
convicted  and  sentenced.  In  Canada,  according  to  the  sta 
tistics  for  the  years  ending  September  30,  1913,  and  Sep 
tember  30,  1914,  in  1913,  55  persons  were  charged  with 
murder,  of  whom  23  were  convicted  and  sentenced  to  death, 
five  were  detained  for  lunacy  and  27  were  acquitted.  In 
1914,  62  persons  were  charged  with  murder,  of  whom  27 
were  convicted  and  sentenced  to  death,  four  were  detained 
for  lunacy  and  31  were  acquitted.  In  1913,  61  persons 
were  charged  with  manslaughter,  of  whom  44  were  con 
victed,  one  was  detained  for  lunacy  and  16  were  acquitted. 
In  1914,  50  persons  were  charged  with  manslaughter,  of 
whom  39  were  convicted  and  20  were  acquitted.  In  1913, 
also  in  1914,  two  persons  each  year  were  charged  with  in 
fanticide  ;  all  four  were  acquitted.  Moorfield  Storey  quot 
ing  Andrew  D.  White,  says  that  the  murder  rate  in  the 
United  States  is  from  ten  to  twenty  times  greater  than  the 
murder  rate  of  the  British  empire  and  other  northwestern 
European  countries.  The  World  Almanac  for  1911,  1912, 
and  1913,  under  Statistics  of  Homicide,  says  convictions  in 
Germany  equalled  95%  and  a  fraction;  in  the  United 


242  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

States  1.3%.  Frederick  L.  Hoffman,  life  insurance  statis 
tician  of  Newark,  New  Jersey,  says  our  murder  death  rate 
for  the  period  1909-1913  was  6.4  per  100,000  of  population. 
The  rate  for  England  and  "Wales  was  0.8;  for  Prussia.  2.0; 
fcr  Australia,  1.9 ;  and  for  Italy,  3.6.  In  other  words,  the 
number  of  murders  in  the  United  States  at  the  present  time, 
proportionate  to  population,  is  about  100  homicides  for 
every  thirteen  committed  in  England  and  Wales,  thirty  in 
Australia,  thirty-one  in  Prussia  and  fifty-six  in  Italy.  It 
admits  of  no  argument  that  among  the  civilized  countries 
of  the  world  the  United  States  stands  to-day  in  deplorable 
contrast  as  regards  the  security  of  the  person  against  the 
risk  of  homicidal  death. 

"In  addition  to  the  statute  extending  the  privilege  of 
avoiding  self-incrimination,  in  tenderness  to  the  weakness 
of  those  who  may  have  been  in  some  degree  compromised. 
21  out  of  our  48  States  have  either  by  constitution  or  stat 
ute  reduced  the  trial  judge  in  jury  cases  to  a  mere  mod 
erator  by  forbidding  him  from  advising  the  jury  on  the 
facts  or  expressing  his  opinion  on  questions  of  fact,  not 
withstanding  that  all  questions  of  fact  in  jury  cases  are  left 
to  the  jury's  sole  and  ultimate  determination.  This  took 
away  a  judicial  right  and  duty  which  every  English  and 
federal  trial  judge  exercises  to  the  public  advantage.  In 
15  more  of  our  states  the  state  courts  of  last  resort  have 
by  judicial  decisions  suppressed  or  abdicated  their  trial 
judges'  right  and  duty  to  act  as  judges  and  have  reduced 
them  to  mere  moderators. 

' '  Other  results  of  statutory  shelters  to  the  guilty,  statu 
tory  privileges  of  crime  and  statutory  tenderness  to  the 
weakness  of  the  compromised,  accompanied  by  the  trial 
judges  in  a  majority  of  the  states  being  forced  to  act  as 
moderators  and  abdicate  their  inherent  functions  as  judges 
to  advise  the  jury  on  the  facts.  Between  1882  and  1903 
lynchings  aggregating  3,337  were  reported  in  44  of  our  49 
continental  states  and  territories.  In  other  nations  lynch 
ing  now  exists  only  in  parts  of  rural  Russia  where  the 


THE    DECLINATION    OF    LAW  243 

provide  an  inadequate  punishment  for  horse  stealing. 
Lynching  does  not  now  exist  anywhere  under  the  British, 
French,  Dutch,  or  German  flags,  although  all  these  nations 
have  frontier  and  mixed  race  conditions  in  their  colonies, 
dependencies  and  possessions,  which  if  either  mixed  races 
or  frontier  conditions  were  primary  causes  of  lynching, 
would  lead  to  an  amount  of  it  in  excess  of  anything  we  have 
ever  known.  It  is  quite  true  that  Anglo-Saxon  popular 
tribunals  and  lynching  originated  in  the  marches  of  Scot 
land  in  the  days  of  the  border  wars  and  was  practiced  also 
by  the  vehmgericht  in  Germany  in  the  days  when  the  power 
formerly  exercised  by  the  Hohenstaufen  emperors  had  been 
usurped  by  the  robber  knights;  also  that  it  was  used  in 
expelling  tories  and  desperadoes  and  confiscating  their 
lands  during  the  lawless  times  of  and  following  the  Ameri 
can  revolution.  Cutler,  Lynch  Law,  5-10,  13-36,  59-76,  88- 
89;  Bancroft,  Popular  Tribunals,  I.  2-7.  To  understand 
popular  tribunals  and  lynching,  the  attitude  of  the  vigi 
lants  and  their  responsible  supporters  and  neighbors  is  of 
more  weight  than  that  of  the  outlaws  or  the  formal  legalis 
tic  critics  of  the  vigilants  who  confine  their  activity  to  de 
structive  criticism  and  make  no  attempt  to  remedy  the  un 
derlying  causes  that  have  led  to  popular  tribunals,  popular 
justice  or  extra  legal  criminal  justice  in  44  of  our  49  con 
tinental  states  and  territories. 

"Hubert  Howe  Bancroft's  Popular  Tribunals  justifies 
the  two  San  Francisco  vigilance  committees  of  1851  also  of 
1856,  as  well  as  the  other  responsible  vigilance  commit 
tees  of  the  Pacific  coast  and  what  are  now  the  Rocky  moun 
tain  states  before  the  civil  war,  on  the  ground  of  necessity, 
because  the  state  and  territorial  governments  had  alike  ab 
dicated  their  primary  duty  to  preserve  life  and  enforce  pub 
lic  order  and  security,  also  their  duty  to  punish  crime. 
Popular  Tribunals,  II,  666,  675-93.  Bancroft  was  the  con 
fidant  of  the  leading  vigilants  and  had  the  free  use  of  their 
archives  and  records.  Bancroft  says,  Popular  Tribunals 
T.  748-9,  that  there  were  but  sixteen  executions  in  thirty 


244  IN   THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

years,  dating  from  1847,  the  opening  year  of  Yerba  Buena's 
aspirations.  These,  with  the  four  hangings  by  the  Vigi 
lance  Committee  of  1851,  and  four  by  that  of  1856,  com 
prise  the  catalogue.  Millions  of  money  had  been  paid  by 
the  citizens  to  keep  running  criminal  courts  and  police  regu 
lations  these  thirty  years,  and  hundreds  of  men  were  all  the 
time  at  large  whom  the  law  pronounced  guilty  of  death. 
As  to  the  citizens  composing  the  committee  of  1856,  they 
have  calmly  stood  by  and  seen  and  heard  of  some  fourteen 
hundred  murders  in  their  city  in  six  years,  and  only  three 
of  the  murderers  hanged  under  the  law,  and  one  of  those  a 
friendless  Mexican.  I  have  given  in  this  volume  many  ex 
amples  of  popular  tribunals,  but  the  half  has  not  been  told. 
It  is  safe  to  say  that  thus  far  in  the  history  of  these  Pacific 
States  far  more  has  been  done  toward  righting  wrongs  and 
administering  justice  outside  the  pale  of  law  than  within 
it.  Out  of  535  homicides  which  occurred  in  California 
during  the  year  1855  there  were  but  seven  legal  executions 
and  forty-nine  informal  ones.  Of  the  latter  ten  occurred 
in  the  month  of  January,  not  one  of  which  would  have  been 
consummated  if  left  to  the  machinery  of  law.  So  it  was  in 
Nevada  ten  years  later:  to  150  homicides  there  were  but 
two  legal  executions.  It  was  the  Augustan  age  of  murder. 

''Bancroft  quotes  the  London  Times'  view  that  if  Cali 
fornia's  lax  criminal  law  enforcement  was  so  serious  an 
evil  as  to  need  a  vigilance  committee  to  supersede  the  law 
of  the  land  in  open  day  to  restore  public  order,  it  could 
have  no  possible  difficulty  in  amending  the  administration 
of  this  law,  had  they  directed  their  efforts  to  such  purpose 
instead  of  dispensing  with  law  altogether.  Strong  trial 
judges  of  the  British  or  federal  type,  or  a  strong  California 
criminal  procedure  of  the  English,  Canadian,  or  Australian 
type,  which  convicts  the  criminal  instead  of  manumitting 
or  enlarging  him,  was  the  last  thing  the  Californians  of 
1851  to  1856  seemed  to  desire. 

"William  T.  Coleman,  president  of  the  1856  Vigilance 
Committee,  wrote  his  executive  committee:  'Keep  all 


THE    DECLINATION    OF    LAW  245 

cases  in  California  from  judges,  but  have  juries  in  all  cases. ' 
Bancroft,  voicing  the  vigilant  view,  says  that  popular 
tribunals  and  the  right  of  revolution  were  the  vigilant 
ideals.  Here  on  this  coast  had  been  law  without  order  for 
years,  and  at  last  the  people  were  determined  to  have  order 
without  law,  if  necessary.  Law  had  become  criminal,  and 
must  be  put  upon  trial  by  the  people  for  dereliction  of  duty. 
For  some  few  centuries  yet  the  iron-bound  dogmatism  of 
ancient  societies  will  continue  to  condemn  the  action  and 
principles  of  popular  tribunals.  They  will  continue  to  see 
no  difference  between  a  mob  and  a  committee  of  vigilance, 
between  a  turbulent,  disorderly  rabble,  hot  with  passion, 
breaking  the  law  for  vile  purposes,  and  a  convention  of 
virtuous,  intelligent,  and  responsible  citizens  with  coolness 
and  deliberation  arresting  momentarily  the  operations  of 
law  for  the  salvation  of  society. 

"But  the  time  will  come  when  intelligent  men  every 
where  will  acknowledge  the  superiority  of  this  principle. 
It  will  then  be  seen  that  that  government  is  most  stable 
which  is  founded  on  rectitude  and  independence,  which 
relies  for  its  support  on  the  will  of  a  virtue-loving  people, 
and  not  on  tradition  or  inexorable,  law.  It  will  then  be 
seen,  more  clearly  than  now,  that  all  power  vests  in  the 
people,  whether  they  chose  to  use  it  or  to  remain  bound  by 
superstitious  veneration  of  shadow,  that  even  after  law  is 
made  and  execution  provided,  the  executive  has  no  power 
except  such  as  daily  and  hourly  continued  to  him  by  the 
people.  Bancroft,  II,  670-1.  In  California  the  trial  judge 
in  jury  cases  is  a  mere  moderator,  and  is  not  allowed  to 
advise  the  jury  on  any  question  of  fact.  Bancroft  points 
out  that  Macaulay's  prophecy  of  1857  as  to  America's 
future  danger  was  clearly  inspired  by  San  Francisco 's  two 
vigilance  committees.  Either  some  Caesar  or  Napoleon 
will  seize  the  reins  of  government  with  a  strong  hand,  or 
your  republic  will  be  as  fearfully  plundered  and  laid  waste 
by  barbarians  in  the  twentieth  century  as  was  Rome  in  the 
fifth ;  with  this  difference,  that  the  Huns  and  Vandals  who 


246  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

ravaged  Rome  came  from  without,  and  that  your  Huns  and 
Vandals  will  have  been  engendered  within  your  country 
by  your  own  institutions.  Popular  Tribunals,  II,  747.'' 

The  vital  features  in  which  the  English,  Australian, 
and  Canadian  criminal  procedure  differs  from  that  of  the 
majority  of  American  criminal  courts  are  the  following: 
The  British,  Scotch,  Canadian,  Australian,  South  African, 
or  Indian  trial  judge  is  a  strong  judge,  not  a  mere  modera 
tor.  He  gives  the  jury  the  benefit  of  his  experience  and 
skill  by  advising  them  in  difficult  cases  respecting  the 
weight  and  effect  of  the  evidence,  what  he  believes  the  evi 
dence  had  shown,  but  he  also  informs  the  jury  that  they 
are  the  sole  judges  of  the  facts  and  are  at  liberty  to  disre 
gard  his  advice.  The  distinctive  feature  of  Anglo-Saxon 
jury  trials  is  a  strong  and  experienced  trial  judge  aiding 
and  advising  the  jury,  but  leaving  the  ultimate  decision  of 
all  disputed  questions  of  fact  to  the  judge,  instead  of  acting 
as  a  weak  and  opinionless  moderator,  as  the  trial  judge 
must  do  in  three-fourths  of  our  states.  In  Canada  the 
judge  may  try  most  criminal  cases  without  a  jury  where  a 
jury  is  waived  by  defendant. 

Trial  by  combat  and  dueling  are  obsolete,  but  there  yet 
remain  connected  with  law  courts  and  law  practice,  crudi 
ties  and  absurdities  to  be  discarded.  We  prefer  courts  of 
justice  to  popular  tribunals,  but  if  we  cannot  have  the  for 
mer  we  will  have  the  latter.  We  prefer  peace  to  war,  but 
better  war  than  a  display  of  cowardice  at  home  or  submis 
sion  to  injustice  abroad. 

It  is  impossible  to  transform  medieval  superstition  into 
modern  fact.  Religion  tried  it,  and  still  tries  it,  and  so 
we  have  preached  from  latter-day  pulpits,  and  paraded 
at  latter-day  altars  the  soul  of  the  auto-da-fe  and  the  mum 
meries  of  the  inquisition,  the  realities  of  the  unreal,  as 
miracles,  revelations  and  all  the  church  mechanism  for  the 
enforcement  of  ignorance  and  blind  belief.  Law  retains  it 
in  every  fibre  of  its  constitution,  to  find  vent  in  legislative 


THE    DECLINATION    OF    LAW  247 

proceedings  and  in  the  antics  of  the  so-called  courts  of  jus 
tice. 

The  cure  for  our  courts  is  to  blot  them  out  and  estab 
lish  something  new.  The  railroad  commission,  indeed,  as 
far  as  it  goes  is  a  wonderfully  efficient  system,  working 
perfectly  in  all  its  parts ;  and  the  hope  is  that  this  or  some 
thing  like  it  will  in  due  time  be  extended  over  all  litigation, 
over  all  issues  such  as  now  appear  in  courts  of  law.  The 
difference  between  the  two  systems  is  that  one  is  dominated 
by  the  great  god  Sham,  while  in  the  other  Equity  rules; 
in  the  one  case  arrayed  in  robes  of  fustian  adorned  with 
quibs  and  technicalities,  law  sits  enthroned,  whereas  in  the 
other,  truth  and  the  right  are  of  the  first  consideration. 

But  it  were  perhaps  more  profitable  to  consider  what 
the  railroad  commission  is  than  what  the  courts  of  law  are 
not. 

The  Railroad  Commission  of  California  is  a  department 
of  the  state  government  which  supervises  and  regulates 
the  rates,  service,  facilities,  extensions,  issues  of  securities, 
and  transfers  of  property  of  all  public  utilities  in  Cali 
fornia.  It  has  jurisdiction  over  railroads,  street  car  and 
express  companies;  over  car,  steamship,  gas,  electric,  and 
water  companies ;  over  telephones,  telegraphs,  oil  pipe  lines, 
wharves,  and  warehouses. 

Every  corporation  or  individual  serving  the  public  by 
any  of  the  above  means  is  subject  to  the  control  of  the 
commission  for  the  public  good.  Only  utilities  owned  by 
cities  and  operating  within  those  municipalities  are  ex 
pected,  as  the  municipal  railway  of  San  Francisco  and  the 
Los  Angeles  aqueduct. 

The  work  of  the  commission  is  organized  into  six  de 
partments,  as  follows  :  Administrative ;  Legal ;  Statistics 
and  Accounts;  Bates;  Engineering;  Stocks  and  Bonds. 
Each  department  is  subdivided  into  such  bureaus  as  are 
necessary.  In  the  rate  department,  for  instance,  are  bu 
reaus  devoted  to  railroad,  water,  gas  and  electric,  tele- 


248  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

phone  and  telegraph,  warehouse,  and  wharf  rates.  In  the 
engineering  department  are  bureaus  devoted  to  electrical 
engineering,  hydraulic  engineering,  and  to  general  service 
and  safety  work. 

The  nature  of  the  matters  submitted  to  the  commission 
for  adjustment  are  such  as  to  render  speedy  determinations 
imperative.  Stock  and  bond  issues  must  be  handled  ex- 
peditiously.  Rate  inconsistencies  must  not  be  allowed  to 
continue  longer  than  can  be  avoided.  The  commission  has, 
therefore,  adopted  the  policy  of  proceeding  with  as  much 
speed  as  accuracy  and  full  justice  will  demand.  On  the 
matters  coming  before  it  since  the  adoption  of  the  public 
utilities  act,  requiring  formal  hearings,  the  commission  has 
rendered  its  decisions  at  the  rate  of  ten  per  week.  In  these 
formal  cases,  the  average  time  from  the  filing  of  the  papers 
to  the  decision  has  been  34  days.  The  average  time  from 
the  filing  to  the  hearing  has  been  12  days ;  and  the  average 
time  from  the  hearing  to  the  decision  has  been  22  days. 
Despite  the  large  number  of  matters  before  it,  the  commis 
sion  has  kept  abreast  with  its  calendar,  and  those  cases  now 
undecided  represent  merely  the  normal  calendar  accuma- 
tion.  The  commissioners  travel  about  the  state,  holding 
hearings  where  the  greatest  convenience  of  the  people  sug 
gests. 

For  thirty-three  years,  from  1879  until  1912,  from  the 
creation  of  the  commission  until  an  awakened  public  zeal 
altered  its  form  and  spirit,  there  were  but  three  members. 
These  were  elected  in  districts.  The  commission's  juris 
diction  during  this  time  was  solely  over  steam  railroads  of 
the  state.  During  this  period,  embracing  the  greatest 
growth  in  railroad  building,  in  population  and  wealth,  not 
more  than  a  dozen  cases  were  brought  forward  for  adjudi 
cation.  No  single  important  principle  affecting  the  rela 
tion  of  the  railroads  to  the  people  was  ennuicated.  No 
rates  were  lowered  effectually.  Chosen  by  an  unrepresenta 
tive  method,  not  for  fitness,  but  generally  for  political 
purposes,  the  commission  was  without  real  authority,  and 


THE    DECLINATION   OF   LAW  249 

lacked  the  confidence  of  the  people.  It  was  a  mere  lay 
figure  in  the  governmental  and  economic  life  of  the  state. 
The  people  were  entirely  without  adequate  remedy  against 
the  exactions  and  extortions  of  the  railroads.  Not  until 
political  progress  had  ended  the  reign  of  corporations  over 
the  people,  and  had  elected  a  legislature  representing  the 
desires  of  the  people,  were  these  conditions  changed. 

The  general  results  accomplished  by  regulation  since 
January,  1911,  when  Governor  Johnson  assumed  office,  may 
be  divided  into  two  divisions,  moral  and  economic.  It  is 
the  practice  to  lay  stress  particularly  upon  the  economic 
accomplishment.  It  is  true  that  the  decisions  of  the  com 
mission  have  resulted  in  the  saving  to  the  people  of  the 
state  of  approximately  $6,000,000  per  year. 

More  deeply  rooted,  however,  and  more  essential  to  the 
permanent  welfare  of  the  state  is  the  moral  effect.  The 
achievement  of  greatest  moment  through  the  medium  of 
the  railroad  commission  has  been  the  establishment  perma 
nently  of  the  people's  control  over  public  utility  corpora 
tions  in  the  state  of  California.  Before  the  present  state 
administration  took  office,  it  was  an  accepted  fact  that  large 
public  service  corporations  controlled  the  government  of 
California,  and  that  this  control  was  vested  particularly 
in  the  largest  public  service  corporation  of  the  state.  The 
primary  idea  in  the  minds  of  those  who  gave  to  this  railroad 
commission  its  extensive  powers,  was  the  overthrow  of  the 
dominance  of  these  public  service  corporations.  The  com 
mission  believes  that  the  control  of  the  people  over  these 
public  service  corporations  has  been  so  positively  fixed  and 
determined  that  not  even  the  most  arrogant  of  these  great 
corporations  now  doubts  it. 

In  March,  1912,  went  into  effect  the  Public  Utilities  act 
under  which  the  railroad  commission  is  appointed  by  the 
governor,  and  the  number  of  commissioners  were  increased 
to  five,  jurisdiction  being  given  not  only  over  steam  rail 
roads  but  over  all  public  utilities  in  unincorporated  terri- 


250  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

tories.  By  act  of  the  legislature,  effective  in  August,  1915. 
this  jurisdiction  was  extended  to  incorporated  cities  and 
towns,  and  the  present  powers  of  the  commission  conferred 
upon  it. 

The  reorganization  of  the  commission  has  resulted  in 
the  establishment  of  an  impartial  tribunal  to  which  both 
the  public  utilities  and  the  public  can  appeal  for  the 
solution  of  their  problems  and  complaints  in  connection 
with  public  utility  construction  and  operation.  Whereas 
hitherto  the  only  redress  has  consisted  in  long  drawn  out 
and  expensive  court  proceedings,  these  matters  are  now 
promptly  and  generally  satisfactorily  disposed  of  by  the 
commission.  The  result  has  been  an  entire  change  for  the 
better  in  the  attitude  of  public  utilities  toward  the  public, 
and  of  the  public  toward  public  utilities  in  this  state. 

The  commission  has  made  reductions  in  public  utility 
rates  whenever  on  the  evidence  presented,  such  reductions 
seemed  fair.  In  a  large  number  of  instances,  the  effect  of 
reductions  has  been  an  actual  increase  in  the  revenues  of 
the  public  utility  affected.  That  injustice  has  not  been  done 
to  the  public  utilities  is  shown  by  the  report  of  their  finan 
cial  condition,  and  that  in  no  instance  has  a  decision  of 
the  commission  establishing  rates  been  reversed.  The  com 
mission  has  been  just  as  ready  to  grant  increases  in  rates, 
where  justified,  as  to  grant  decreases.  This  fact  is  shown 
by  the  increases  granted  during  the  year  ending  June  30. 
1916,  during  which  period  26  small  water  companies,  11 
warehouses  and  three  telephone  companies  were  authorized 
to  increase  their  rates.  In  nearly  every  instance  the  in 
creases  were  accepted  without  protest  by  the  consumers. 

The  so-called  service  connection  charges  have  been  abol 
ished,  improved  conditions  of  service  have  been  effected, 
and  rules  and  regulations  governing  the  condition  and 
quality  of  service  have  been  established  with  reference  to 
all  classes  of  utilities.  Rules  have  also  been  established  with 
reference  to  the  making  of  extensions,  both  within  and 
without  the  limits  of  incorporated  cities  and  towns. 


THE    DECLINATION   OP    LAW  251 

The  commission  now  controls  and  regulates  the  utilities 
of  more  than  200  cities  and  towns,  besides  the  whole  extent 
of  the  state  outside  of  them.  Over  1,000  utilities  filed  their 
annual  report  with  the  commission  during  1915. 

The  commission  handles  matters  before  it  by  formal  and 
informal  methods.  Formal  proceedings  necessitate  public 
hearings,  while  informal  proceedings  are  handled  in  person 
by  a  commissioner,  or  by  correspondence,  and  there  is  no 
public  hearing.  Even  in  the  formal  matters,  parties  in 
terested  need  not  employ  attorneys,  and  the  commission  is 
not  bound  by  technical  rules  of  evidence,  as  in  courts,  but 
seeks  to  administer  justice  by  ascertaining  all  the  facts. 
Since  the  commission  was  given  jurisdiction  over  all  public 
utilities,  3,500  formal  decisions  have  been  rendered  by  it. 
The  increase  year  by  year  is  indicative  of  the  constantly 
growing  work  of  the  commission.  But  a  trifle  over  one  per 
cent  of  the  decisions  of  the  commission  for  the  past  twelve 
months  were  appealed  from,  and  none  of  these  decisions 
was  reversed  by  the  courts. 

With  its  enlarged  scope,  and  behind  it  the  will  of  the 
people  to  make  amenable  to  their  rights  and  wishes  the 
conduct  of  the  public  service  corporations,  the  commission 
began  at  once,  either  upon  its  own  initiative,  or  upon  the 
complaint  or  application  of  others,  an  investigation  into 
the  rates,  rules,  and  service  of  the  utilities.  The  commis 
sion  has  made  itself  the  guardian  of  the  interests  of  the 
people  in  their  use  of  the  utilities.  It  stands  between  these 
corporations  and  the  public,  and  compels  those  who  furnish 
the  people  with  these  necessities  and  conveniences  of  life, 
to  deal  fairly  and  promptly  with  their  customers,  and  to 
make  rates  just  to  the  people  as  well  as  to  the  utilities. 

The  confidence  in  which  the  public  holds  the  commission 
was  indicated  by  the  increased  power  given  it  by  the  legis 
lature  and  the  direct  vote  of  the  people.  A  third  of  the 
cities  had  voluntarily  voted  their  utilities  under  the  com- 


252  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

mission,  and  seeing:  the  effects  of  this  control,  the  people  of 
all  the  state  made  it  unanimous. 

Through  its  informal  department  the  commission  en 
ables  any  citizen  of  the  state,  by  the  use  of  merely  a  two- 
cent  stamp  or  a  postal  card,  to  lay  any  matter  before  it. 
The  humblest  citizen  without  expense  has,  therefore,  the 
full  privilege  of  calling  the  commission  to  his  aid  where  his 
grievance  is  justifiable.  Every  informal  complaint  thus 
received  is  given  the  same  careful  attention  that  attaches 
to  a  regular  case.  In  this  manner  the  commission  is  able 
to  attain  a  high  degree  of  usefulness  to  the  people. 

The  least  influential  citizen  in  city  or  country,  who 
makes  a  complaint  against  a  public  service  corporation,  ob 
tains  a  prompt  hearing  and  a  prompt  remedy.  No  request 
for  investigation  is  unheard.  In  pursuance  of  this  plan  the 
commission  journeys  all  over  the  state  to  hear  complaints 
and  requests.  So  great  has  grown  this  work  that  a  few 
months  ago,  upon  the  action  of  the  legislature,  three  exam 
iners  were  authorized  to  aid  the  commission.  These  exam 
iners  take  and  report  to  the  comsissioners  the  evidence  in 
cases  assigned  to  them.  It  is  thus  possible  and  occasionally 
happens  that  eight  hearings  will  be  in  progress  at  the  same 
time  in  various  parts  of  the  state. 

More  and  more  have  the  people  of  the  state  come  to  look 
upon  the  commission  as  the  guardian  of  their  interests  with 
the  utilities.  Besides  about  3,000  applications. filed  with  the 
commission  since  its  re-birth,  more  than  10,000  informal 
matters  have  been  adjusted  and  remedied.  Many  of  these 
have  been  made  in  person,  but  most  of  them  by  letter,  or 
even  by  telegram  or  telephone.  These  have  been  promptly 
adjusted  by  correspondence,  or  by  personal  visit  of  one  of 
the  commission's  experts,  and  a  satisfactory  conclusion 
reached  in  the  large  majority  of  cases,  obviating  the  neces 
sity  of  formal  proceedings.  These  informal  complaints  and 
requests  take  many  different  forms.  They  range  from  the 
request  of  a  householder  for  speedy  installation  of  gas  or 


THE    DECLINATION    OF    LAW  253 

water  service  to  the  complaint  of  a  community  of  unsatis 
factory  transportation  facilities. 

A  great  factor  in  reducing  these  complaints,  and  one 
of  the  main  achievements  of  the  commission  in  the  four 
years  of  its  new  existence,  has  been  the  insuring  to  utilities 
monopolies  in  the  fields  they  serve  so  long  as  such  service 
is  adequate  at  reasonable  rates.  This  means  that  utility 
fields  can  not  be  divided  by  unjust  competition,  which, 
splitting  up  perhaps  among  several  corporations  the  pos 
sible  earnings,  prevents  adequate  service.  Many  public 
utilities,  being  by  their  very  nature  monopolies,  the  com 
mission  laid  down  the  principle  that  these  ultilities  should 
have  protection  against  such  competition  if  they  satisfied 
their  patrons  and  grew  with  the  needs  of  their  territory. 

Another  striking  result  of  the  commission's  concern  for 
the  average  citizen  has  been  the  establishment  of  a  uniform 
set  of  rules  governing  the  service  of  gas,  water,  electric, 
telephone,  and  telegraph  utilities.  Each  of  these  corpora 
tions  had  formerly  enforced  its  own  arbitrary  system  of 
rules  and  deposits  from  customers,  and  extensions  of  serv 
ice  to  them.  The  state  at  this  date  assumed  this  power 
under  the  commission 's  decision,  and  fixed  standard  regula 
tions  for  the  entire  state.  An  examination  had  been  made 
by  the  commission  into  the  practices  of  a  thousand 
corporations,  and  nearly  a  year  consumed  in  the  inquiry. 
A  million  dollars  held  by  the  utilities  as  deposits  to  guar 
antee  payment  by  customers  is  being  given  back  to  the 
public.  By  this  ruling  the  questions  of  extensions  and 
connections,  of  payment  of  bills,  and  of  installations,  are 
upon  a  plain  and  firm  basis  for  all  the  corporations,  and 
the  companies  compelled  to  put  in  telephones,  meters,  and 
service  connections  at  their  own  expense,  and  not  that  of 
the  public.  As  the  desire  for  municipal  ownership  gains 
in  California,  the  commission's  power  to  set  the  figures  at 
which  cities  may  condemn  and  buy  their  utilities  will  be 
exercised  more  and  more. 

Special  attention  has  been  paid  to  the  needs  of  the 


254  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

agricultural  communities  of  the  state.  By  investigation 
and  resulting  orders,  it  has  been  able  to  advance  conspicu 
ously  for  large  increases  of  crops  and  of  population  in  com 
munities  where  the  lack  of  water  service  hindered  progress. 

The  commission's  decision  that  the  California  Develop 
ment  company  is  a  public  utility  was  appealed  to  the 
supreme  court  whose  judges  refused  to  upset  the  decision. 
This  company  has  a  practical  monopoly  of  water  sources 
for  the  entire  Imperial  valley,  and  its  regulation  is  im 
perative  for  the  expansion  of  profitable  farming  in  that  dis 
trict.  Over  30,000  acres  of  agricultural  land  in  Placer 
county  were  given  water  by  the  commission,  after  a  seem 
ingly  effectual  barrier  to  the  growth  of  this  section  had 
been  erected  by  the  power  company's  refusal  to  meet  the 
demands  of  the  farmers.  The  company,  determining  to 
build  additional  power  houses  below  the  lands  needing 
irrigation,  refused  to  distribute  any  more  water,  limiting 
cultivation  to  eighteen  thousand  acres  and  leaving  two 
hundred  land  owners  without  water.  The  commission  found 
that  the  claims  of  these  farmers  superseded  those  of  the 
corporation  for  more  power  to  sell  abroad.  The  measure 
ment  of  irrigation  water  by  standard  device  is  encouraged 
wherever  possible. 

The  public  utilities  act  makes  it  necessary  for  the  con 
sent  of  the  commission  to  be  obtained  before  a  railroad 
crossing  may  be  constructed.  It  gives  the  commission  the 
right  to  abolish  and  close  grade  crossings.  This  includes 
not  only  the  crossing  of  one  railroad  by  another,  but  also 
all  crossings  of  streets  by  railroads,  or  vice  versa.  Under 
this  authority  the  commission  has  declared  its  policy  to 
grant  permission  for  as  few  grade  crossings  of  railroads  as 
possible,  and  as  speedily  as  can  be  to  end  their  existence  in 
California. 

The  revenue  of  express  companies  in  California  was 
reduced  $750,000  a  year,  and  the  profits  of  Wells  Fargo  & 
Company  cut  down  from  136  per  cent  to  22  per  cent.  Long 
distance  telephone  rates  were  established  saving  the  con- 


THE    DECLINATION    OF    LAW  255 

sumers  $500,000  a  year,  while  the  annual  reduction  on 
railroad  passenger  and  freight  rates  was  not  less  than 
$(5,000,000. 

More  than  700  miles  of  railroad  have  been  constructed 
under  the  authorization  of  this  commission,  and  power 
projects  have  been  initiated  or  carried  forward  embracing 
100,000  additional  horse  power  for  the  state.  Fifteen  new 
railroad  enterprises,  embracing  an  expenditure  of  $20,- 
000,000  have  either  been  launched  or  carried  forward  al 
most  from  their  inception. 

English  capital  to  the  extent  of  $5,000,000  has  come  into 
California  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  commission  for 
the  construction  of  a  new  oil  pipe  line  from  the  fields  at 
Coalinga  to  San  Francisco  bay.  A  new  ferry  service  be 
tween  Contra  Costa  and  Marin  shores  has  been  inaugurated 
under  the  commission's  supervision  and  jurisdiction.  New 
telephone,  water,  and  warehouse  enterprises,  scattered 
throughout  the  state,  have  been  made  possible  by  commis 
sion  regulation.  At  the  same  time  all  other  public  utili 
ties  have  gone  forward  with  prospects  of  expansion -and 
development  involving  the  expending  of  more  than  $150,- 
000,000. 

Not  only  has  every  legitimate  business  in  the  state  been 
stimulated  by  the  readjustment  of  freight,  power,  and  tele 
phone  rates,  but  the  utilities  have  almost  uniformly  made 
an  improvement  and  a  better  financial  showing  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  railroad  commission  than  heretofore. 
Despite  the  regulation  of  the  ultilities,  the  frequent  reduc 
ing  of  their  rates,  the  curbing  of  their  arbitrary  treatment 
of  the  public,  and  the  disciplining  of  dishonest  companies 
and  officials,  the  railroad  commission  has  been  an  aid  to 
general  development  and  is  favorably  considered  in  finan 
cial  circles. 

Under  the  old  order  in  California,  communities  of  men 
were  made  to  serve  the  purposes  of  individual  men.  The 
long  continuance  of  such  a  relationship  means  the  destruc 
tion  of  individual  independence  and  initiative.  With  the 


256  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

overthrow  of  the  political  power  of  these  great  public 
service  corporations,  and  their  subjection  to  the  control 
of  the  people,  must  come  that  re-assertion  of  individual 
independence  and  initiative  which  makes  for  the  better 
ment  of  mankind.  This  more  than  all  else  makes  the  work 
of  the  railroad  commission  worth  while. 


CHAPTER  XII 

FALLACIES  AND  FANTASIES 

HOMILIES  are  promulgated  upon  the  beneficial  uses 
of  adversity,  but  the  benefits  of  prosperity  find 
expression  in  enjoyment  rather  than  in  sermonizing.  I 
for  one  will  say  frankly  that  I  have  no  use  for  adversity. 
"Sweet,"  the  poet  calls  it;  'then  let  the  poet  have  it. 
Pleasure  without  pain  were  unknown  if  the  soothsayer  may 
be  believed;  then  let  both  be  eliminated.  Which  brings 
us  to  brutism,  a  state  preferable  to  certain  agonies  of  mind 
and  body  which  a  kind  providence  scatters  among  his  best 
beloved. 

Human  nature  is  a  complex  machine,  with  an  endless 
variety  of  hearts  and  heads,  of  temperaments,  dispositions 
and  idiosyncrasies,  all  alike,  yet  no  two  the  same  since 
the  appearing  of  the  first  man  and  woman. 

A  moderate  amount  of  money,  so  far  as  affecting  any 
comforts  or  blessings  this  world  can  give,  is  better  than 
many  millions  whose  only  compensation  is  the  ignoble  pride 
of  possession.  Few  believe  this,  however,  and  few  of  those 
believing  will  act  upon  it.  It  is  a  case  where  truth  and 
right  judgment  are  not  wanted. 

Yet,  withal,  when  the  rain  of  riches  falls  upon  us  comes 
the  infatuation  to  scatter  them,  in  which  operation  the 
good  sense  of  mankind  does  not  appear  at  the  best  advan 
tage.  The  city  of  New  York,  the  most  conspicuous  of  all 
communities  at  the  present  time,  is  rioting  with  money 
obtained  primarily  from  supplying  Europe  with  imple 
ments  of  death,  by  passing  on  to  them  the  poison  for  their 
self-extermination;  meanwhile  with  orgies  and  flaunting 
9  257 


258  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

extravagance  revelling  in  their  death  dance  which  is  to 
command  the  envy  and  admiration  of  all  mankind. 

Where  does  the  benefit  of  this  so-called  prosperity  come 
in,  a  prosperity  which  indeed  is  nothing  less  than  eating 
from  the  same  poisonous  loaf  which  we  are  so  generously 
administering  to  the  starving  suicides  across  the  water? 
And  in  the  after-damp,  before  and  after  the  deadly  vapor 
is  somewhat  blown  away,  and  with  a  realization  of  it  all 
reflection  comes,  what  are  we  to  think  of  it,  and  of  our 
selves,  and  of  the  pleasure  we  have  derived  from  the  mis 
fortunes  of  these  many  nations? 

Sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversity,  let  us  remember.  By 
it  men  are  made  manlier,  stronger,  better  able  to  cope  with 
obstacles  which  impede  progress  toward  the  higher  life. 
Shameless  too  often  are  the  uses  of  prosperity,  enervating 
to  mind  and  .stimulating  to  immorality,  inducing  vanity, 
inanity,  and  all  sorts  of  mental,  moral,  and  physical  deteri 
oration.  Should  we  not  be  thankful  therefore  that  so  few 
of  the  blessings  which  flow  from  Europe's  madness  have 
reached  California? 

Western  civilization  is  rapidly  dispelling  eastern  super 
stitions,  and  will  continue  so  to  do  untill  all  the  cults  of 
the  present  day  dissolve  in  thin  air. 

I  think  I  may  safely  say  that  as  a  rule  we  of  the  west 
do  not  envy  the  east  their  wealth  and  prosperity;  we  do 
not  envy  them  their  frills  and  furbelows,  their  play-houses 
and  palaces,  their  so  high  society  with  its  shams  and  hypoc 
risies,  its  witless  men  and  made-up  women;  nor  their  so 
low  society  with  its  poverty  and  misery,  its  rank  smelling 
negro  quarters,  its  foul-air  colonies  of  gibbering  Italians, 
Portuguese,  Scandinavians,  and  Slavs.  -Let  New  York 
remain  America's  celestial  heights  until  a  new  firmament 
appears  with  the  sun  resting  over  San  Francisco  bay. 

No  man,  if  he  be  a  man,  will  go  through  life  without 
some  useful  occupation  which  will  be  to  him  a  career,  a 
life-long  effort  in  which  he  may  hope  to  excel;  otherwise, 


FALLACIES    AND    FANTASIES  259 

though  he  may  be  the  possessor  of  millions  he  is  simply  a 
loafer,  a  cumberer  of  the  ground  from  which  he  sucks 
substance  giving  nothing  in  return. 

Indecision  is  the  worst  of  -all  bad  habits.  Better  do 
the  thing  and  do  it  not  quite  right,  then  do  it  again  and 
do  it  right,  than  to  do  nothing,  sitting  idly  waiting  for 
the  repavement  of  hades  with  good  intentions. 

To  the  European  gentleman  the  privilege  of  wide  dis 
crimination  is  barred  by  custom;  his  choice  of  a  profes 
sion  is  limited  to  three,  the  government,  warfare,  and  the 
church,  none  of  them  being  in  the  way  of  benefits  to  man, 
but  rather  explorations  in  the  fields  of  wickedness,  in  sub 
duing  or  preventing  vice  and  crime,  a  police  autocracy. 
And  from  the  king  and  high  priests  down  to  the  poor  pro 
bationer,  the  more  exalted  his  position  the  more  worthless 
he  is,  save  only  in  the  government,  where  the  aristocratic 
system  is  in  some  respects  superior  to  the  democratic. 

We  Americans  are  full  of  fads,  which  give  us  pain  until 
they  find  expression.  Prominent  among  others  in  these 
latter  days  are  the  benevolent  efforts  of  the  peace  propa 
gandists,  who  would  stop  a  dog-fight  by  talking  nonsense 
to  the  dogs. 

Jane  Addams  takes  her  knitting-work  and  goes  to  Eu 
rope  to  ascertain  by  whom  the  war  was  started;  on  her 
return  she  soberly  assures  her  admirers  that  it  is.  a  thing 
no  fellow  can  find  out,  yet  there  were  many  here  in  Amer 
ica  who  could  have  told  her  what  she  wished  to  know  before 
she  went  away. 

Mr  Ford,  among  the  several  compartments  of  whose 
brain  we  cannot  find  one  well  equipped  for  dealing  in  inter 
national  affairs  however  expert  he  may  be  in  making  auto 
mobiles,  trusts  to  his  money,  which  he  is  right  in  regarding 
as  a  powerful  agent  for  good  as  well  as  for  evil.  So  he 
fills  a  ship  with  peace-making  fanatics  who  are  at  war 
among  themselves  before  they  are  half-way  across  the 
Atlantic. 


260  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

Time  was  when  David  Star  Jordan  was  accredited  with 
his  lucid  intervals,  but  not  since  leaving  his  office  to  a  better 
man  to  assume  the  empty  honor  of  lord  high  chancellor 
of  the  university,  the  better  to  become  an  apostle  of  peace 
and  draw  pay  from  Stanford's  stolen  millions,  while  as 
the  Nobel  prize  flits  away  in  the  distance  he  sinks  into 
retirement. 

11  Blessed  are  the  peacemakers,"  said  Jesus,  "for  they 
shall  be  called  sons  of  God."  Well,  we  have  plenty  of 
peacemakers  at  Washington  and  throughout  the  country, 
and  Miss  Addams,  Mr  Ford,  and  Mr  Jordan  should  feel 
signally  blest  if  Christ's  words  are  true.  And  surely  it 
was  no  fault  of  theirs  that  they  did  not  succeed,  and  are 
now  not  called  sons  of  God,  the  same  that  William  the 
kaiser  calls  himself.  Even  Woodrow  Wilson  did  not  suc 
ceed,  though  he  strained  the  moral  sense  of  all  the  nations 
in  his  efforts  to  do  so. 

Blessed  are  the  peacemakers,  even  though  peace  comes 
through  war,  that  the  scriptures  may  be  fulfilled.  And 
blessed  is  peace.  For  pleasant  indeed  it  is  to  sleep  in 
peace  while  others  fight;  pleasant  to  pillow  our  head  upon 
the  wave  of  prosperity  and  dream  of  further  inflowing 
millions  from  the  man-killing  machinery  sent  across  the 
water.  Hence  it  was  when  after  the  rape  of  Belgium  I 
wrote  in  my  Modern  Fallacies,  some  two  years  ago,  ' '  Better 
the  United  States  should  join  the  allies  than  that  Germany 
should  win,"  the  words  were  regarded  as  somewhat  san 
guinary,  and  not  to  be  taken  too  seriously. 

Many  who  form  societies  and  pose  as  instructors  and 
regenerators  of  the  race  we  can  scarcely  regard  seriously. 
Some  of  them,  however,  those  with  the  least  mental  equi 
poise  are  undoubtedly  sincere,  however  infatuated  they 
may  be.  Others  see  in  it  notoriety,  and  the  plaudits  of  sen 
timental  women  and  brainless  men ;  or  should  some  of  the 
combatants  happen  to  be  overcome  during  their  contests 
great  would  be  their  glory  for  having  achieved  martyr- 


FALLACIES    AND    FANTASIES  261 

dom,  while  peace-medals  would  be  struck  off  by  the  thou 
sands. 

They  should  know,  these  good  kind  men  and  women, 
and  many  of  them  do  know,  that  what  they  advocate  is 
impossible,  or  were  it  not  so  that  the  accomplishment  of 
their  purpose  at  this  juncture  would  be  the  worst  thing 
that  could  happen,  as  in  a  premature  peace  all  that  has 
been  done  for  the  honor  and  rights  of  humanity  would 
be  thrown  away,  and  the  present  game  of  carnage  would 
have  to  be  continued  at  no  distant  day.  True  benevolence 
insists  upon  a  continuance  of  this  conflict  between  right 
and  wrong  until  certain  issues  are  established  which  shall 
prevent  its  immediate  recurrence.  And  do  any  of  our 
aspiring  peace-makers  suppose  for  a  moment  that  the  Ger 
man  people,  their  doctors,  professors,  and  war-lords,  in 
their  present  state  of  disordered  mentality,  are  ready,  at 
the  request  of  alien  sentimentalists,  to  restore  the  lands 
they  have  stolen,  make  some  sort  of  reparation  for  the 
wrongs  they  have  committed,  abandon  their  system  of 
militarism  and  give  substantial  assurance  of  future  good 
behavior  ? 

Or  do  they  suppose  that  England  and  France,  with 
the  example  of  Belgium  and  the  many  other  atrocities 
before  them  as  to  their  fate  under  German  supremacy,  do 
they  suppose  for  a  moment  that  England  and  France  will 
submit  to  a  further  intensifying  of  the  reign  of  blood  and 
iron  inaugurated  by  Bismarck,  to  denationalization,  degra 
dation,  and  slavery  as  long  as  there  is  left  a  man  among 
them  who  can  fight? 

Finally  the  kaiser  himself  makes  what  he  calls  an  offer 
of  peace,  whereat  all  the  women  in  pantaloons  and  petti 
coats  clap  their  hands  and  cry  halleluiah !  And  what  is 
this  offer  of  peace  ?  Why,  let  him  keep  certain  of  his  loot, 
and  be  given  a  guarantee  that  he  should  not  again  be 
attacked,  and  he  would  stop  the  slaughter, — talk  at  once 
insincere  and  insulting,  subterfuge  too  shallow  to  deceive 
a  school-girl.  Yet  all  Germany  believes  in  it,  believes  that 


262  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

the  kaiser  did  not  bring  on  the  war  but  was  forced  into  it. 
Then  what  is  it  ?  Is  William  of  Germany  an  arch  hypocrite, 
yet  silly  enough  to  think  he  can  deceive  the  world  with 
such  talk,  or  is  he  really  insane  ?  He  pretends  he  is  a  con 
queror,  yet  he  sues  for  peace.  He  pretends  he  is  the  vic 
tim;  he  knows  he  was  the  aggressor  at  the  start  and  all 
through  the  war.  He  now  sees  that  his  case  is  hopeless, 
while  this  pretended  peace  offering  only  binds  the  allies 
still  firmer  in  their  determination  to  hold  together  and 
fight  it  out. 

"Has  the  prospect  of  a  future  permanent  peace  been 
strengthened  or  weakened  by  the  present  world  war?" 
asks  the  editor  of  the  Copenhagen  Verden  Og  Vi. 

The  answer  is  simple  and  conclusive.  If  fought  to  a 
finish,  and  Germany  safely  bound  to  proper  terms,  yes; 
if  not,  no. 

What  President  Wheeler  of  the  university  says  of  it 
is  this:  "Bethmann-Hollweg's  proposals,  I  believe,  repre 
sent  a  genuine  effort  to  open  negotiations  looking  toward 
the  end  of  the  war.  Unless  a  beginning  is  made  somewhere 
and  at  some  time,  the  war  will  drag  on  for  years  of  inde 
cision  and  misery.  Every  friend  of  civilization  must  de 
sire  the  end  of  this  wretched  strife,  which  was  from  the 
beginning  perverse  and  devoid  of  all  clear  and  straight 
forward  purpose  viewed  from  either  side.  No  one,  how 
ever,  who  desires  the  end  of  the  war  will  separate  from 
that  desire  the  conviction  that  all  will  be  practically  vain, 
both  war  and  peace,  unless  a  plan  can  be  devised  and  made 
a  part  of  the  peace  whereby  nations  never  again  can  trip 
blithely  or  slide  so  recklessly  into  war  as  did  the  nations  of 
Europe  in  midsummer  1914." 

Were  not  Germany  crowned  with  folly  she  would  now 
secure  peace  on  the  best  terms  she  could  get,  for  she  knows 
that  she  is  doomed,  and  should  know  that  a  prolongation  of 
war  will  only  add  to  the  final  penalty  she  must  pay. 

Compare  the  present  and  what  may  be  expected  after 
the  European  war  with  the  conditions  shortly  after  our  war 


FALLACIES    AND    FANTASIES  263 

for  the  union.  As  one  writes  in  the  seventies,  in  reference 
to  the  period  then  just  past:  "The  increase  of  wages  for 
all  kinds  of  manual  labor  was  very  great,  but  comparatively 
few  of  the  workingmen  saved  anything.  They  imitated  the 
profusion  of  their  employers  and  guides.  Economy  was 
deemed  unnecessary,  stupid,  and  mean.  New  wants  were 
invented,  prudence  and  simplicity  of  life  went  out  of 
fashion,  and  habits  were  formed  and  sentiments  adopted 
which  have  wrought  most  important  changes  in  the  char 
acter  and  aims  of  the  workingmen  of  this  country.  The 
sheer  wastefulness  of  that  period,  if  it  could  be  adequately 
portrayed,  would  appear  incredible  to  all  who  did  not  wit 
ness  it.  A  curious  feature  of  the  time  was  the  fact  that 
for  so  many  men  all  foresight  seemed  to  have  become  impos 
sible.  They  were  intoxicated  with  their  fancied  prosperity, 
and  were  confident  that  it  would  last  forever.  Into  these 
conditions  was  suddenly  plunged  a  population  which  had 
no  sufficient  moral  safeguards  whatever.  The  transition 
to  dishonesty  had  been  prepared  for  among  all  classes,  and 
was  already  partly  accomplished. 

* '  I  observed  much  complaint  lately  of  the  difficulties  in 
volved  in  universal  suffrage.  They  are  doubtless  great. 
If  the  world  were  wholly  different  we  might  do  fine  things. 
But  we  must  have  methods  that  can  be  used  as  things  are, 
to  begin  with,  at  least.  The  age  is  probably  the  most  un- 
teachable  since  the  revival  of  learning.  But  we  can  work 
to-day  only  where  we  are.  We  are  shut  up  to  this  univer 
sal  suffrage  organization  of  society,  and  must  find  out  how 
to  make  it  serve  the  ends  for  which  society  exists.  The 
franchise  is  not  likely  to  be  narrowed  greatly  in  our  time. 
If  America  were  a  jungle  of  human  tigers,  still  it  is  our 
country  and  the  country  of  our  children,  and  its  people, 
however  undeveloped  and  intractable  are  our  neighbors, 
brethren,  and  fellow-citizens." 

As  through  evil  alone  good  can  come,  so  through  war 
may  we  hope  for  ultimate  peace. 

Fads  and  fancies  are  quite  as  necessary  to  our  present 


264  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

system  of  social  economics  as  lying,  or  to  the  science  of 
government  as  necessary  as  political  legerdemain.  The 
world  must  have  something  to  do,  something  to  alter  or 
reform  or  it  gets  into  mischief.  So  Satan  prowls  about  the 
habitations  of  the  rich  and  restless,  one  pocket  filled  with 
deviltries  for  the  men  and  the  other  with  easy  divorce 
papers  for  the  women. 

Yet  after  all  a  man  or  woman  without  a  passion,  for 
good  or  for  evil,  is  but  a  cabbage.  And  as  for  our  inex 
orable  environment,  are  we  not  all  slaves  under  its  influ 
ence,  doomed  to  sloth  or  to  energy  as  the  gods  shall  direct, 
and  is  it  not  better  to  die  overdoing  than  to  attempt  noth 
ing?  Then  give  the  young  man  his  fad,  and  should  it  in 
the  end  prove  more  than  passing  fancy  he  and  you  will  be 
the  gainer  by  it.  The  fadless  youth,  the  youth  without  as 
pirations  or  ambition  is  not  a  profitable  investment  for  ad 
vanced  education,  nor  a  promising  subject  for  high  dis 
tinction.  The  person  without  any  further  purpose  in  life 
than  simple  existence  and  enjoyment,  how  is  he  better  than 
a  poodle,  a  dog  which  sometimes  displays  intelligence  ? 

For  the  faddist  may  be  a  fool  or  a  sprouting  genius ;  he 
cannot  tell,  so  he  comes  to  you  with  his  rimes  written  on 
soiled  paper,  and  you  do  not  like  to  talk  to  him  of  Tennyson. 

A  scarcely  logical  feature  of  the  patriotic  sentiment  we 
find  in  the  dictum, '  *  See  America  first, ' '  and  in  Sir  Walter 's 
extravaganza,  " Breathes  there  a  man  with  soul  so  dead," 
etc. 

"Why  should  I  see  America  first?" 

"Because  it  is  your  own  country." 

' '  But  my  country  may  or  may  not  be  better  worth  seeing 
than  another ;  I  may  be  a  better  man  than  another ;  because 
I  am  me  and  the  country  mine  proves  nothing,  proves  not 
even  the  presence  of  a  bogus  patriotism." 

Then  there  is  the  race  situation,  in  regard  to  which 
we  are  less  a  concrete  community  than  an  abstract  conun 
drum.  A  mixture  of  races  is  demoralization  for  both  sides, 


FALLACIES    AND    FANTASIES  265 

besides  being  disgusting  even  to  think  about.  Polygamy 
is  not  so  bad  as  polyandry,  but  this  idea  which  certain 
Asiatics  entertain  of  amalgamating  all  the  peoples  of  the 
earth  into  one  race  were  better  postponed  until  all  but  one 
race  dies  out. 

How  shall  the  eugenicists  who  organize  societies  for 
birth-control  and  the  improvement  of  the  race  have  the 
courage  to  continue  their  efforts  in  the  face  of  the  constant 
enlargement  of  the  factories  for  making  American  citizens 
out  of  base  material  ?  ' '  It  is  proper  to  point  out, ' '  says  an 
expert  upon  the  subject,  "that  birth-control  is  not,  as  the 
public  seems  to  suppose,  an  integral  part  of  the  eugenics 
propaganda.  Many  eugenicists  advocate  it;  many  others 
oppose  it.  In  either  case,  it  must  be  regarded  as  a  fact 
with  which  eugenics  must  deal.  If  one  section  of  a  com 
munity  limits  the  number  of  births,  and  another  section  does 
not,  it  is  easy  to  calculate  how  soon  the  latter  section  will 
supplant  the  former,  and  there  are  plenty  of  object-lessons 
in  the  old  colonial  stock  of  New  England.  The  eugenicist 
is  more  interested  in  the  quality  than  in  the  quantity  of  the 
population. ' ' 

The  yellow  peril  at  the  present  time  consists  not  in  the 
potential  invasion  of  an  Asiatic  horde  of  fighting  men,  but 
in  the  actual  invasion  of  a  Japanese  horde  of  rapid-breed 
ing  women  who  are  flooding  the  country  with  baby  Nip 
ponese,  presently  to  appear  at  the  polls  as  American  citi 
zens.  Gentlemen  Japs  of  property  too  they  will  be,  for 
their  fathers  are  even  now  vesting  in  their  name  the  title 
to  lands  which  the  laws  of  California  forbid  them  to  hold 
in  their  own. 

There  is  no  danger  of  hostile  attack  from  the  Japanese 
so  long  as  we  give  them  the  carrying  trade  of  the  Pacific,  as 
a  few  submarines  would  make  short  work  of  destroying 
their  ships,  even  though  we  invite  war  by  appearing  before 
them  in  the  humble  attitude  of  a  coward  nation. 

Fighting  or  no  fighting,  the  United  States  must  take  an 
active  part  in  the  world's  affairs  or  cease  pretensions  as 


266  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

a  first  class  power.  Germany  must  not  be  allowed  to  dom 
inate  the  world,  nor  must  Japan  be  permitted  to  steal  China 
or  control  the  Pacific  ocean.  China  does  not  want  America, 
and  Japan  finds  it  profitable  to  let  us  live  a  little  longer. 
With  our  present  Congress  in  power  she  has  too  good  a 
thing  of  it  as  it  is. 

Japan  may  take  a  lesson  from  Germany.  The  Germans 
regarded  their  war  lords  invincible.  The  world  was  at  their 
feet  and  they  thought  to  pick  it  up.  Japan  aspires  to  simi 
lar  thievery.  Germany  began  by  picking  up  little  Belgium. 
And  where  and  what  is  Germany  now?  Millions  of  her 
finest  specimens  of  manhood  slain,  millions  of  homes  made 
desolate,  millions  of  money  squandered,  honor  lost,  colonies 
lost,  the  crown  itself  wabbling  on  the  kaiser's  head.  And 
what  has  she  gained  ?  The  everlasting  hatred  and  contempt 
of  all  mankind.  Wherefore  if  great  Germany  could  not 
pick  up  little  Belgium  without  such  dire  disaster,  little 
Japan  can  scarcely  hope  to  capture  great  America  and  live 
happily  ever  after. 

What  is  this  so  much  talked  of  living  wage?  It  is  a 
wage  that  will  enable  the  recipient  to  pay  his  exploiter  a 
liberal  sum  monthly  to  drive  away  other  laborers  who  may 
be  starving  for  work  which  they  would  be  glad  to  get  at 
half  of  his  living  wage.  It  is  a  wage  which  would  enable 
him  to  help  pay  an  army  of  labor  leaders  to  work  for  the 
election  of  law-makers  and  judges  easy  to  bribe,  who  will 
support  any  wrong  or  injustice  that  will  give  the  exploiters 
of  the  workingman  the  whip  hand  over  the  employers  of 
labor.  It  is  a  wage  such  as  would  give  the  poor  toiler  one- 
quarter  of  his  time  to  spend  in  a  drinking-saloon,  filling 
himself  with  poisonous  rum  and  fouling  the  air  with  rant- 
ings  against  .good  men  and  good  government.  It  is  a  wage 
which  will  enable  him  to  give  his  lady  daughter  piano  les 
sons  while  her  mother  does  the  housework.  It  is  a  wage 
which  will  enable  him  to  send  a  doltish  son  through  college 
without  pay ;  which  will  enable  him  to  raise  a  family  of  im- 


FALLACIES    AND    FANTASIES  267 

pencunious  snobs;  which  will  give  him  access  to  free  hos 
pitals,  free  penitentiaries,  and  enable  him  to  avoid  pay 
ing  even  the  little  poll-tax  of  two  dollars  a  year  in  support 
of  the  government,  which  was  to  guarantee  him  all  the 
blessings  of  life  and  liberty,  and  a  good  old  Irish  burial  at 
the  end. 

Champions  affecting  the  high  wage  and  generous  living 
for  workingmen,  how  muchsoever  credit  they  think  to 
bring  upon  themselves  for  benevolent  thought  and  humani 
tarian  ideals,  present  only  one  side  of  the  subject.  No 
white  man  wants  white  workingmen  to  live  like  the  poorer 
classes  of  Europe  Asia  and  Africa,  but  it  is  lack  of  thrift 
rather  than  lack  of  pay  that  bars  the  way  of  our  people, — 
the  saloons  and  a  thriftless  household;  for  moderate  pay 
with  proper  economy  will  go  farther  than  large  pay  with 
extravagance. 

Before  I  was  born  my  father  took  a  contract  for  build 
ing  a  portion  of  the  first  canal  in  central  Ohio.  My  mother 
accompanied  him,  and  while  keeping  his  house,  cooking  for 
his  men,  and  caring  for  her  two  first-born  babes,  the  returns 
from  braiding  straw  for  bonnets  were  greater  than  her  con 
sort 's  profits  in  his  canal  work. 

That  mother  was  a  Vermont  farmer's  daughter,  a  New 
England  woman  of  the  best  type,  intelligent,  benevolent, 
with  a  lively  interest  in  all  public  affairs,  piety,  duty  and 
deep-seated  principle  actuating  every  step  in  life, — a  heart 
full  of  loving  kindness, — ah,  God!  how  shall  one  speak  of 
one's  mother, — as  much  superior  to  the  bedizened  dames  of 
high  society  as  gold  to  tinsel. 

It  is  plainly  apparent  that  the  high  cost  of  living  never 
will  be  lessened  until  the  cost  of  production  of  essential 
articles  is  lessened,  and  this  can  never  be  done  with  only 
high  cost  labor.  The  consumer  has  now  to  support  a  per 
centage  of  inefficient  workmen,  and  a  horde  of  labor-leaders 
who  suck  their  substance  from  labor,  living  luxuriously  on 
what  they  secure. 


268  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

What  a  thing  is  fame !  David  Lloyd- George  and  Joffre 
are  just  now  famous,  as  not  long  ago  were  Lord  Kitchener 
and  Admiral  Dewey,  whose  greatness  quickly  disappeared 
in  smoke.  In  like  manner  the  great  villain  and  the  athletic 
brute  are  for  the  moment  famous. 

I  was  asked  the  other  day  to  hand  in  some  names  of 
persons  fittest  to  be  enrolled  in  a  hall  of  fame,  already  un 
der  consideration  being  John  C.  Fremont,  Joaquin  Miller, 
and  Bret  Harte.  I  asked  for  instructions  as  to  the  stand 
ard  of  greatness  to  be  employed,  whether  great  goodness 
or  great  wickedness,  great  in  achievements  beneficial  to  the 
race  or  great  in  fantastic  follies. 

The  truth  is  Fremont  was  a  fraud,  as  history  fully 
establishes,  though  we  find  his  name  posted  freely  on  school- 
houses  and  other  public  places  by  unsophisticated  educa 
tors.  Joaquin  Miller  was  a  mountebank  rimester  of  the 
Oregon  backwoods,  discoverable  only  in  England,  while 
my  friend  Harte  was  a  writer  of  charming  burlesque  as, 
applied  to  the  early  California  gold-diggers.  If  any  of 
these  were  of  the  quality  of  fame  they  required  for  their 
hall  they  could  not  do  better  than  to  make  their  choice 
accordingly.  There  is  Susan  B.  Anthony,  a  great  man,  or 
would  be  were  she  not  a  woman;  also  Mrs  Eddy,  the  new 
messiah.  The  name  of  William  the  kaiser  will  go  down 
in  history  as  the  greatest  of  Christian  devils,  while  Taft 
and  Woodrow  Wilson — but  enough,  I  am  getting  beyond 
the  mark.  Some  might  regard  Abraham  Lincoln  better  as 
an  example  for  everlasting  fame  than  the  keen-edged  Hunt- 
ington,  and  if  the  most  worthy  of  the  west  are  wanted  I 
should  mention  William  T.  Coleman,  James  King  of  Wil 
liam,  John  M.  Eshleman,  and  high  above  them  all,  when  his 
time  comes,  Hiram  M.  Johnson. 

Next  after  Washington  and  Lincoln,  Theodore  Roose 
velt  was  our  best  president,  and  notwithstanding  the  sneers 
of  the  money-changers  and  the  oaths  of  the  politicians,  his 
tory  will  confirm  it.  And  Hiram  Johnson,  whose  turn  may 
come  in  due  time,  is  not  far  behind  him.  Roosevelt  and 


FALLACIES   AND    FANTASIES  269 

Johnson  are  alike  in  these  respects,  they  are  both  men  of 
innate  honesty,  sincerity,  integrity,  and  ability,  with  a 
patriotism  ready  to  sacrifice  self  for  the  good  of  the  country 
if  necessary. 

Timid  women  and  men  will  say  that  Roosevelt  is  too 
ready  to  fight,  but  the  solid  men  of  America  must  know  by 
now  that  the  United  States  must  fight  when  the  time  comes 
or  go  out  of  business.  Let  the  sighing  sentimentalists  an 
swer  one  or  two  plain  questions.  Would  they  rather  be 
like  China  or  fight  ?  Would  they  rather  be  like  Belgium  or 
fight  ?  Would  they  prefer  a  kaiser  rule  to  a  Koosevelt  rule  ? 
Should  they  see  their  women  treated  as  the  German  officers 
and  soldiers  treated  the  women  of  France  and  Belgium, 
after  despoiling  their  homes,  would  they  fight  ? 

But  Roosevelt  would  have  brought  on  war,  they  still 
harp  on.  That  is  not  proved,  nor  is  it  at  all  probable.  A 
manly  policy,  commanding  the  respect  of  all  nations,  were 
less  liable  to  invite  attack  then  a  timid  one,  displaying  fear 
if  not  cowardice.  Further  than  this,  if  Theodore  Roose 
velt  brought  war  on  the  United  States,  we  may  be  very  sure 
that  the  first  duty  of  the  United  States  would  be  to  fight, 
and  fight  hard.  As  well  censure  Washington  and  Lincoln 
for  bringing  on  war,  as  indulge  in  such  speculative  rot. 
Besides,  we  are  yet  to  see  how  much  war  Mr  Wilson  will 
keep  us  out  of  before  we  are  free  from  him. 

Most  senseless  of  all  are  the  blessed  lambs  of  the  propa 
gandists  who  go  bleating  about  the  world  for  peace  when 
they  should  know  that  they  themselves  are  the  greatest 
enemies  to  peace.  Better  the  cry,  Let  us  have  war!  until 
these  European  horrors  once  for  all  are  settled.  Even 
China  adopts  republicanism  and  bristles  up  before  Ger 
many.  Hail  to  thee  old  Cathay!  Art  awake  at  last? 

Many  are  ready  to  answer  blithely,  though  not  always 
satisfactorily,  the  question,  What  are  some  of  the  principal 
causes  that  impede  the  progress  of  this  commonwealth? 
Morally,  I  mean,  we  are  prosperous  enough  materially ;  too 


270  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

prosperous  in  fact.  Will  any  one  tell  us  why  after  fifty 
years  of  good  behavior  there  comes  a  defection  from  the 
ethical  ideals  of  the  founders  of  the  republic  like  that,  for 
example,  at  the  Chicago  convention  of  1912  ?  Money  was  not 
the  Eoot  of  all  evil  on  that  occasion,  for  the  convention  was 
not  bought  but  stolen,  the  looters,  however,  getting  only  a 
wrecked  party,  wrecked  reputation,  wrecked  hopes  of  any 
future  political  influence  or  prestige,  and  the  contempt  of 
all  right-minded  men  throughout  the  republic  for  their 
pains. 

One  writing  in  the  Literary  Digest  thus  compliments 
our  state: — "When  our  northern  cities  are  in  the  grip  of 
blizzards,  the  orange-groves  of  California  are  resplendent 
with  golden  fruit,  and  gardens  in  southern  California  are 
fragrant  with  flowers.  Later,  towards  the  end  of  March, 
California  is  a  land  of  blossoms,  not  surpassed  by  the 
famous  cherry  blossoms  of  Nippon  herself.  Here  is  found 
not  the  heat  of  the  tropics,  but  a  balmy  and  yet  invigorat 
ing  air,  long  famed  for  its  health-giving  qualities.  This 
climate,  combined  with  the  attractive  scenery  and  fruitful- 
ness  of  the  land,  has  caused  vast  numbers  of  families  from 
the  east  to  make  California  their  permanent  home.  Of  late 
years  the  tourist  charm  of  the  Golden  State  has  been  height 
ened  by  the  rapid  extension  of  a  motor-highway  system  of 
extraordinary  excellence.  California  is  spending  millions 
for  permanent  roads.  From  almost  every  tourist  centre 
radiate  motor-drives  either  along  the  sea-shore,  through  the 
fertile  valleys,  or  to  the  mountains.  These  automobile  trips 
form  important  adjuncts  to  the  rail  routes  and  make  it  pos 
sible  to  see  many  places  heretofore  inaccessible.  Whether 
California  is  entered  by  the  southern  or  northern  gateway, 
the  trip  from  the  east  may  be  made  by  diversity  of  attrac 
tive  routes,  disclosing  the  natural  wonders  and  material  re 
sources  of  this  great  nation." 

While  in  the  potential  mood  attention  might  be  called 
to  many  other  things,  as  the  equable  distrilnition  of  wealth, 
the  savings  banks  showing  three  accounts  for  every  five 


FALLACIES    AND    FANTASIES  271 

adults  in  San  Francisco;  a  per  capita  of  wealth  in  San 
Francisco  of  $2,368;  in  California  of  $3,560;  unlimited  eco 
nomic  power  possibilities  from  water,  electricity  and  oil. 

The  Pacific  coast  has  five-elevenths  of  the  standing  tim 
ber  of  the  United  States  and  twenty  per  cent  of  California 's 
area  is  in  forests.  At  the  present  rate  of  cut,  California 
has  a  visible  supply  for  140  years  of  redwood  and  for  350 
years  of  mixed  timber.  In  minerals  California  is  the  fifth 
state  in  output;  but  in  the  opinion  of  leading  geologists 
is  first  in  the  variety  and  value  of  its  mineral  deposits.  The 
state  has  deposits  of  practically  every  mineral  known  in 
America.  What  lies  under  the  snows  of  Alaska  no  man 
knoweth. 

California !  Do  we  not  know  that  we  are  living  in  the 
best  country  in  the  world  ?  Do  we  not  know  that  were  we 
enjoying  the  aches  and  pains  of  old  age  anywhere  else  we 
would  say  let  us  go  to  California  and  get  rid  of  them?  And 
this,  not  in  a  provincial  spirit  of  narrow-minded  egotism, 
self-praise,  and  vain  glory,  but  as  citizens  of  the  world, 
knowing  something  of  all  countries,  and  appreciating  the 
best  when  we  see  it. 

Let  those  who  fail  to  know  California,  if  any  such  there 
be,  read  what  the  editor  of  Collier's  says: — "California,  as 
it  stands  to-day,  is  the  most  successful  experiment  in  human 
society  that  has  ever  existed  on  earth.  It  has  no  poverty; 
it  has  no  slums ;  it  has  the  maximum  of  political  freedom ; 
the  wealth  is  generally  distributed.  The  average  family  liv 
ing  in  California  to-day  has  access  to  comforts  and  mate 
rial  pleasures  such  as  are  utterly  unknown  to  large  portions 
of  the  population,  not  only  of  Europe,  but  of  eastern  United 
States ;  and  as  for  the  romantically  idealized  civilization 
of  Florence,  Rome,  and  Greece,  hardly  the  meanest  Cali- 
fornian  would  have  cared  to  be  a  patrician  among  the 
Caesars.  To  some  extent,  of  course,  this  is  due  to  climate ; 
to  some  extent  to  soil ;  but  some  folks  think  a  good  deal  of 
it  is  due  to  the  intelligence  with  which  the  affairs  of  human 


272  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

society  have  been  treated  in   California  for  some  years 
past." 

There  were  the  roaring  forties  and  the  recessional  fifties, 
and  so  Anglo-California  came  into  being.  With  what  pride 
we  recall  certain  episodes  of  our  beloved  California's  ado- 
lescense.  But  alas !  we  did  evil  in  the  sight  of  the  best  men 
of  the  republic  at  the  last  presidential  election. 

At  a  critical  time  we  reflected  to  office  a  proved  incom 
petent,  a  man  of  shifts  and  indirection,  probably  the  most 
ill-fitted  for  the  position  of  all  our  presidents. 

Yes,  we  did  it.  And  we  take  shame  to  ourselves  for  do 
ing  it. 

Although  we  elected  him — worse  luck — and  lest  I  may 
be  prejudiced  in  my  estimate  of  the  man's  character,  or 
lack  of  character,  or  lest  I  allow  lese  majesty  to  interpose 
and  prevent  me  from  speaking  the  truth,  feeling  keenly 
as  I  do  the  wrongs  he  has. brought  upon  the  United  States, 
and  especially  upon  California  and  this  Pacific  seaboard, 
let  Gifford  Pinchot  tell  what  sort  of  manhood  he  sees  in 
Woodrow  Wilson,  which  is  the  same  as  seen  by  the  most 
observant  Americans,  even  by  many  of  those  who  voted  for 
him. 

"For  many  months  after  his  inauguration,"  said  Pin 
chot  in  the  autumn  of  1916,  "I  thought  well  of  President 
Wilson.  In  many  respects  I  liked  what  he  said  about  what 
he  was  going  to  do.  He  talked  well  and  made  a  good  im 
pression.  It  was  only  when  I  began  to  check  up  what  he 
said  by  what  he  did  that  I  was  forced  to  change  my  view. 
In  the  end  I  came  to  see  that  he  has  a  greater  power  than 
any  other  man  in  public  life  to  say  one  thing  but  do  an 
other,  and  get  away  with  it. 

"The  facts  which  justify  this  statement  are  common 
knowledge.  We  have  all  heard  him  tell  Germany  publicly 
that  she  would  be  held  to  strict  accountability,  and  have 
learned  afterward  that  he  had  actually  let  her  know  secretly 
at  the  time,  by  the  mouth  of  his  secretary  of  state  through 


FALLACIES   AND   FANTASIES  273 

the  Austrian  ambassador,  that  what  he  said  he  did  not 
mean.  We  have  all  seen  him  prove  that  he  did  not  mean 
it  by  his  total  failure  to  exact  reparation,  apology  or  even 
disavowal  for  the  murder  of  Americans  on  the  Lusitania. 

1  i  I  do  not  say  that  Wilson  should  have  thrust  us  into  the 
war.  There  was  no  need  of  war.  But  there  was  need  of 
courage  to  give  us  peace  with  self-respect.  If  Wilson  had 
shown  courage  this  country  would  not  have  skidded  from 
one  crisis  to  the  next,  again  and  again  narrowly  escaping 
disaster.  We  have  all  heard  him  declare  against  interven 
tion  in  Mexico,  while  actually  intervening  to  dictate  who 
should  and  who  should  not  hold  office  there,  and  denounce 
war  against  Mexico  while  actually  engaged  in  war. 

"With  war  on  every  side  of  us  we  all  heard  him,  in  his 
second  annual  message,  solemnly  assure  the  country  that 
we  had  not  been  negligent  of  national  defense.  It  was  not 
true ;  and  later  on  he  himself  proved  that  it  was  not  true  by 
proclaiming  aloud  the  need  for  what  he  had  solemnly  as 
sured  us  we  already  had. 

"For  more  than  a  year  after  the  world- war  began  Wil 
son  did  not  raise  a  finger  to  put  us  in  a  condition  of  defense. 
Only  the  proverbial  good  luck  of  America  has  kept  us  from 
paying  the  bitterest  price  for  his  unforgivable  neglect. 

"We  have  all  heard  him  ridicule  the  idea  of  a  greater 
navy,  then  declare  for  incomparably  the  greatest  navy  in 
the  world,  and  then  go  back  on  that. 

"We  have  all  heard  him  declare  for  exempting  our 
coastwise  trade  from  tolls  in  the  Panama  canal,  and  have 
seen  him  show  our  own  people  and  the  English  that  he  did 
not  mean  it. 

'  *  We  have  seen  him  elected  on  a  platform  which  pledged 
him  to  a  single  term  as  president,  and  then  become  a  can 
didate  for  another  term. 

"We  have  all  heard  him  declare  for  the  conservation  of 
our  natural  resources,  and  have  seen  him  neglect  that  policy 
and  refuse  his  help  to  defeat  the  Shields  waterpower  bill, 


274  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

the  most  dangerous  attack  on  conservation  since  Ballinger  's 
effort  to  turn  Alaska  over  to  the  Guggenheims. 

"We  have  all  heard  him  declare  for  efficiency  in  gov 
ernment,  and  have  seen  him  set  the  pork-barrel  first  and 
throw  efficiency  away.  I  have  known  official  Washington 
from  the  inside  for  six  administrations.  In  that  time  the 
government  business  has  never  been  so  badly  done  and  so 
extravagantly  as  it  is  now  done  under  Wilson. 

"We  have  all  heard  him  announce  himself  as  the  cham 
pion  of  civil  service  reform,  and  have  seen  him  turn  the 
government  departments  over  to  the  spoilsmen  as  no  other 
president  has  done  in  twenty  years. 

' '  We  have  all  heard  him  declare1  for  pitiless  publicity, 
and  have  seen  him  conduct  the  most  secret  administration 
of  our  time. 

"We  have  all  heard  him  announce  himself  as  president 
of  the  people,  and  have  seen  him  as  the  most  partisan  presi 
dent  of  his  generation,  flout  and  oppose  the  progressives, 
whom  now,  because  he  needs  them,  he  seeks  to  conciliate 
and  enlist. 

"Worst  of  all  is  this:  When  every  principle  of  free 
dom  and  equality  for  which  our  fathers  fought  was  at 
stake  in  the  great  war,  when  our  whole  country  eagerly 
awaited  the  leadership  of  the  president,  Wilson  dodged. 
He  refused  to  take  sides  on  the  greatest  moral  issue  of 
our  time.  He  advised  our  people  to  be  neutral  even  in 
thought,  undecided  between  right  and  wrong.  While  our 
friends  abroad  were  fighting  for  the  principles  we  held 
equally  with  them  he  taught  us  that  profits  and  ease  were 
better  than  self-respect.  President  Wilson  has  done  our 
nation  the  most  serious  injury  that  any  leader  can  do  to 
any  people  by  making  us  flinch  with  him  from  a  great  moral 
decision. 

"Having  led  us  wrong  on  the  ground  that  we  must 
be  neutral  in  the  face  of  the  deliberate  breaking  of  the 
world's  peace,  he  has  just  reversed  himself  again  and  in 
his  speech  at  Shadow  Lawn  now  assures  us  that  no  nation 


FALLACIES    AND    FANTASIES  275 

can  any  longer  remain  neutral  as  against  any  wilful  dis 
turbance  of  the  peace  of  the  world. 

"It  is  bad  enough  that  Wilson's  foreign  policy  has 
left  us,  as  the  war  draws  toward  its  end,  without  a  friend 
among  the  great  nations  of  the  world,  and  without  the 
respect  of  any  one  of  them.  What  is  worse  is  that  he 
has  kept  us  from  standing  up  for  what  we  know  to  be 
right. 

"In  what  he  has  said,  done  and  left  undone  the  record 
shows  Mr  Wilson  steadily  dominated  by  political  expe 
diency.  These  facts  and  many  others  like  them,  have  forced 
me  to  see  what  Mr  Wilson  says  is  no  sign  of  what  he  has 
done  or  of  what  he  will  do.  The  one  thing  his  record 
shows  is  that  what  he  stands  for  now  he  is  not  likely  to 
stand  for  long." 

Some  of  Wilson's  worst  acts  were  in  pandering 
for  the  labor  vote.  His  true  opinion  on  the  subject  the 
following  will  show.  In  1907,  at  Princeton,  he  said,  "We 
speak  too  exclusively  of  the  capitalistic  class.  There  is 
another  as  formidable  an  enemy  to  equality  and  freedom 
of  opportunity  as  it  is,  and  that  class  is  formed  by  the 
labor  organizations  and  leaders  of  the  country."  Again 
in  1909,  "I  am  a  fierce  partisan  of  the  open  shop  and  of 
everything  that  makes  for  individual  liberty,  and  I  should 
like  to  contribute  anything  that  might  be  possible  for  me 
to  contribute  to  the  clarification  of  thinking  and  the  for 
mation  of  right  purposes  in  matters  of  this  kind. 

"You  know  what  the  usual  standard  of  the  employee 
is  in  our  day.  It  is  to  give  as  little  as  he  may  for  his 
wages.  Labor  is  standardized  by  the  trade  union,  and 
this  is  the  standard  to  which  it  is  meant  to  conform.  No 
one  is  suffered  to  do  more  than  the  average  workman  can 
do.  In  some  trades  and  handicrafts  no  one  is  suffered  to 
do  more  than  the  least  skillful  of  his  fellows  can  do  within 
the  hours  allotted  to  a  day's  labor,  and  no  one  can  work 
out  of  hours  at  all  or  volunteer  anything  beyond  the  mini 
mum. 


276  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

"I  need  not  point  out  how  economically  disastrous  such 
a  regulation  of  labor  is.  It  is  so  unprofitable  to  the  em 
ployer  that  in  some  trades  it  will  presently  not  be  worth 
his  while  to  attempt  anything  at  all.  He  had  better  stop 
altogether  than  operate  at  an  inevitable  and  invariable 
loss.  The  labor  of  America  is  rapidly  becoming  unprofit 
able  under  its  present  regulation  by  those  who  have  de 
termined  to  reduce  it  to  a  minimum.  Our  economic  su 
premacy  may  be  lost,  because  the  country  grows  and  grows 
more  and  more  full  of  unprofitable  servants." 

*  *  I  have  been  assailed, ' '  said  Roosevelt,  ' '  because  I  have 
criticised  Mr  Wilson.  I  have  not  said  one  thing  of  him 
that  was  not  absolutely  accurate  and  truthful.  I  have 
criticised  him  because  I  believe  he  has  dragged  in  the  dust 
what  was  most  sacred  in  our  past  and  has  jeopardized  the 
most  vital  hopes  of  our  future.  I  criticise  him  now  because 
he  has  adroitly  and  cleverly  and  with  sinister  ability  ap 
pealed  to  all  that  is  weakest  and  most  unworthy  in  the 
American  character,  and  also  because  he  has  sought  to 
lead  many  men  and  women,  who  are  neither  weak  nor 
unworthy,  but  who  have  been  misled  by  a  shadow  dance 
with  words.  He  has  kept  the  eyes  of  the  people  dazzled 
so  they  know  not  what  is  real  and  what  is  false.  In  the 
face  of  the  world  he  has  covered  this  nation's  face  with 
shame  as  with  a  garment." 

Perhaps  no  episode  in  Mr  Wilson's  career  caused  more 
general  indignation  and  sorrow  than  his  scholarly  peace 
notes  to  the  belligerents  in  Europe  wherein  every  academic 
sentence  rang  false. 

When  he  said  that  "The  objects  which  the  statesmen 
of  the  belligerents  on  both  sides  have  in  mind  in  this  war 
are  virtually  the  same,"  he  knew  that  he  was  not  speaking 
the  truth,  and  he  knew  that  all  the  world  knew  it,  yet  his 
assurance  enabled  him  to  brazen  it  out. 

He  knew  that  Germany's  object  was  rapine  and  rob 
bery,  brutal  blood-lust,  piracy,  and  universal  domination, 


FALLACIES    AND    FANTASIES  277 

while  that  of  the  allies  was  to  defend  their  lands  and  deliver 
the  world  from  the  power  of  a  great  people  turned  to 
devils  incarnate. 

A  wave  of  humiliation  and  disgust  swept  over  two 
continents  while  every  right-minded  man  in  the  United 
States  was  filled  with  shame  at  such  misrepresentation  by 
the  chief  magistrate  of  the  republic.  It  was  unfortunate 
diplomacy,  as  cruel  as  it  was  contemptible,  this  truckling 
to  Germany;  it  was  an  insult  to  England  and  France,  an 
outrage  upon  Belgium,  and  a  crime  against  civilization. 

Says  a  stricken  father,  speaking  for  a  million  stricken 
fathers  and  mothers,  "As  one  who  has  lost  his  only  son 
on  the  battle  field,  I  cannot  say  much,  but  I  am  entitled 
to  say  plain  things.  It  is  a  strange  wrong  against  the 
moral  sense  of  mankind  when  President  Wilson  puts  un 
happy  Belgium  on  the  same  moral  level  as  her  violators, 
and  glorious  France  on  the  same  moral  level  as  the  Turks. 
I  for  one  would  rather  lie  with  my  dead  son  than  for  a 
moment  to  accept  this  statement  which  President  Wilson 
cannot  have  meant  to  give  the  pain  and  surprise  it  gave  to 
every  man  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  who  knows  what  this 
fight  for  freedom  means,  and  what  are  its  everlasting  issues 
between  right  and  wrong. ' ' 

The  indignation  of  the  allies  was  aroused,  and  justly 
so.  "We  protest  against  assumption  by  the  president  of 
the  United  States,"  they  said  "that  the  sufferings  of  his 
country  are  in  any  sense  comparable  with  ours,  or  give 
it  in  the  discussion  of  terms  an  equal  place  with  nations 
which  have  shed  their  best  blood  and  borne  unheard-of 
agonies  that  a  just  and  permanent  European  peace  might 
be  established.  And  we  resent  with  all  indignation  the 
comparison  of  the  governments  of  the  allied  nations  with 
the  powers  that  invaded  Belgium  in  cynical  disregard  of 
treaties  to  which  your  government  was  a  party,  shot 
to  death  innocent  hostages,  looted  the  Belgium  banks,  and 
fined  the  population  or  reduced  it  to  slavery.  It  is  with 
amazement  that  we  read  even  the  suggestion  of  such  a  com- 


278  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

parison  from  the  hand  of  the  president  of  a  country  whose 
men,  women,  and  children  were  slain  on  the  Lusitania." 

To  which  the  editor  of  Collier's  remarks:  "Whether 
this  definite  and  precise,  long-considered  and  carefully 
weighed  reply  to  the  hollow  impertinence  of  the  peace  note 
will  quiet  Mr  Wilson's  nervous  activity  remains  to  be 
seen.  In  his  relations  with  foreign  governments  and  his 
discussions  with  Carranza  the  president  has  shown  little 
capacity  for  understanding  the  kind  of  spirit  that  ani 
mates  the  allied  nations.  He  may  fail  to  appreciate  the 
almost  religious  feeling  that  impels  them  to  declare  that 
they  are  fighting  to  safeguard  independence,  right,  and 
humanity,  to  liberate  Europe  from  the  brutal  covetousness 
of  Prussian  militarism,  and  to  insure  a  peace  upon  the 
principles  of  liberty  and  justice, "and  upon  inviolable  fidel 
ity  to  national  obligations.  As  reasons  for  sacrificing  mil 
lions  of  lives,  these  may  seem  vague  and  unimportant  to 
one  kind  of  mind  while  appearing  perfectly  clear  and  of 
transcendent  importance  to  a  mind  differenty  constituted. ' ' 

Thus  obsessed  by  a  sense  of  his  own  infallibility  he 
goes  on  his  winding  way,  while  close  at  his  heels  is  his 
counselor,  whose  limited  vision  sees  no  difference  between 
Washington's  patriot  soldiery  and  the  Mexican  rabble  that 
followed  the  bandit  Villa.  Germany,  meanwhile,  in  a  yet 
wilder  rage  of  insanity,  being  denied  peace  without  victory 
while  claiming  victory,  sets  out  anew  in  an  open  campaign 
for  the  conquest  of  the  world. 

Wilson's  fundamental  weakness,  next  after  nature's 
limited  endowment,  is  in  having  so  many  weak  men  about 
him,  aspiring  in  his  superior  wisdom  and  strength  to  be 
himself  the  whole  United  States,  with  a  subservient  con 
gress  and  incompetent  secretaries. 

Can  anyone  imagine  a  more  maladroit  performance 
than  the  punitive  expedition  into  Mexico  at  the  cost  of 
many  lives  and  four  hundred  millions  of  money,  a  sum 
equal  to  the  income  tax  grind  for  a  year.  Enough  has 


FALLACIES    AND    FANTASIES  279 

been  squandered  in  Mexico  alone  to  build  fifteen  war  ves 
sels  of  the  first  class  and  fifty  submarines,  and  nothing 
accomplished,  except  disgrace,  matters  being  made  worse 
by  it  all  instead  of  better. 

Roosevelt's  opinion  in  regard  to  the  infamous  peace 
note  was  that  the  president  had  taken  a  "  position  so  pro 
foundly  immoral  that  high-minded  and  right-thinking 
Americans,  whose  country  this  note  places  in  a  thoroughly 
false  position,  are  in  honor  bound  to  protest." 

"This  is  palpably  false,"  he  continued  after  quoting 
the  declaration  in  the  note  that  both  sides  say  they  are 
fighting  for  the  same  thing,  and  he  followed  this  with 
the  declaration  that  "it  is  wickedly  false  to  say  that  Ger 
many  is  fighting  for  the  same  thing  as  the  allies." 

"The  prediction  of  the  president  that  at  some  future 
time  the  American  people  intend  to  safeguard  the  rights 
of  small  nations  should  be  promptly  withdrawn,  unless  it 
is  sheer  hypocrisy.  That  the  United  States  is  eager  to 
guarantee  the  peace  of  the  world  is  absurd.  The  spectacle 
of  the  president  trying  to  guarantee  peace  to  any  nation 
with  the  aid  of  Daniels  and  Baker  is  as  comic  as  anything 
ever  written  by  Artemus  Ward. 

"If  his  words  mean  anything,"  he  continued,  "they 
would  mean  that  hereafter  we  intend  to  embark  on  a  pol 
icy  of  violent  meddling  in  every  European  quarrel,  and 
in  return  invite  old  world  nations  violently  to  interfere 
in  everything  American." 

Said  Chester  H.  Rowell,  "Think  of  the  futility  of  our 
whole  course  in  Mexico!  We  sent  the  army  and  navy  to 
Vera  Cruz  to  get  a  salute,  which  we  did  not  get,  and  to 
stop  a  shipment  of  arms,  which  we  did  not  stop.  Then, 
having  marched  in  without  sufficient  cause,  and  being  pre 
vented  from  doing  the  only  things  which  justified  us  in 
staying  there,  we  proceeded,  also  without  excuse,  to  march 
out  again.  Then  we  invaded  Mexico  to  get  Villa.  We  did 
not  get  Villa  and  he  disappeared.  Therefore,  having  noth 
ing  further  to  do  to  justify  us  in  staying  in  Mexico,  the 


280  IN   THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

expedition  nevertheless  stayed.  Finally  Villa  re-appeared, 
and  there  was  something  to  do,  but  the  expedition  was 
forbidden  to  do  it.  Therefore,  in  order  not  to  aggravate 
our  self-imposed  humiliation,  it  comes  out." 

"President  Wilson  has  announced  himself  in  favor  of 
peace  without  victory, ' '  again  said  Roosevelt,  ' '  and  now  he 
has  declared  himself  against  universal  service;  that  is, 
against  all  efficient  preparedness  by  the  United  States. 

"Peace  without  victory  is  the  natural  ideal  of  a  man 
who  is  too  proud  to  fight  and  too  foolish  to  prepare.  It 
is  spurned  by  all  men  of  lofty  soul,  by  all  men  fit  to  call 
themselves  fellow  citizens  of  Washington  and  Lincoln,  or 
of  the  war  worn  fighters  who  followed  Grant  and  Lee. 

"The  tories  of  1776  demanded  peace  without  victory. 
The  copperheads  of  1864  demanded  peace  without  vic 
tory.  These  men  were  Mr  Wilson's  spiritual  forbears. 
But  neither  Washington  nor  Lincoln  was  among  the  men 
who  draw  the  sword  lightly,  or  who  when  once  it  has  been 
drawn  sheathe  it  without  victory.  If  a  righteous  war  is 
concluded  by  a  peace  without  victory,  such  a  peace  means 
triumph  of  wrong  over  right,  and  neutrality  between  right 
and  wrong  means  the  support  of  wrong  against  right. 

"Mr  Wilson  asks  the  world  to  accept  a  copperhead 
peace  of  dishonor,  a  peace  without  victory  for  the  right, 
a  peace  designed  to  let  wrong  triumph,  a  peace  cham 
pioned  in  neutral  countries  by  the  apostles  of  timidity  and 
greed. 

"In  Mexico  he  has  accepted  and  is  accepting  such  a 
peace,  and  by  his  policy  he  has  brought  disaster  to  Mexico 
and  dishonor  to  the  United  States.  His  policies  through 
out  his  four  years  have  brought  woe  to  humanity  and 
shame  and  bitterness  of  heart  to  all  Americans  proud  of 
the  honor  of  their  flag. 

"President  Wilson  talks  of  the  freedom  of  the  seas. 
The  basic  form  of  freedom  is  to  be  free  from  murder.  Yet 
President  Wilson  has  not  dared  to  secure  even  this  ele 
mentary  freedom  from  our  men,  women,  and  children  on 


FALLACIES   AND    FANTASIES  281 

the  seas.  Let  him  first  act  in  the  present  to  secure  this 
elementary  freedom  from  Germany  before,  in  the  inter 
ests  of  Germany,  he  asks  the  abolition  of  naval  power. 

"Let  him  remember  that  to  work  for  disarmament  on 
land  by  the  great  military  powers  of  Europe  and  Asia  is 
to  put  this  non-military  country  at  the  mercy  of  every 
military  monarchy,  for  inasmuch  as  we  are  now  defense 
less  on  land,  our  navy  is  our  only  safeguard  against  in 
vasion.  ' ' 

There  is  a  stricture  in  the  eyes  of  the  president  as 
well  as  in  his  mind  and  morals.  "It  seems  to  us  extraor 
dinary,"  says  Conan  Doyle,  "that  he  should  see  no  dif 
ference  in  the  ideals  of  the  two  sides,  the  side  which  in 
vaded  Belgium  and  the  side  which  defended  her."  Mr 
Doyle  should  know  that  the  ideals  of  Mr  Wilson  are  in 
the  direction  of  personal  and  party  interests,  and  that 
the  welfare  of  the  world  has  very  little  to  do  with  them. 

It  is  a  little  singular  that  we  should  have  in  succession 
two  such  products  of  American  politics  as  the  last  two 
presidents,  a  republican  and  a  democrat,  the  latter  first 
elected  by  luckless  chance  by  a  minority  vote,  the  former 
chosen  by  the  out-going  incumbent  upon  the  pledge  of 
his  whole  avoirdupois  to  maintain  throughout  the  Roose 
velt  policies  which  had  so  elevated  the  standard  of  polit-. 
ical  and  business  ethics  throughout  the  world. 

Whom  shall  the  citizens  of  a  republic  hold  responsible 
for  its  misrule  ?  Themselves.  Though  our  money-changers, 
as  well  as  those  in  whose  general  practice  the  theft  of  a 
convention  is  a  small  matter,  have  learned  the  lesson  that 
square  dealing  will  carry  a  man  further  and  over  an 
easier  road  than  he  shall  find  among  any  of  the  paths 
of  indirection,  and  order  their  affairs  accordingly,  yet  in 
well  organized  lines  of  business  the  old  maxim  caveat 
emptor,  is  still  remembered.  And  if  in  the  purchase  of 
goods  it  is  well  for  the  buyer  to  know  what  he  is  getting, 
how  much  more  important  it  is  in  electing  men  to  office. 


282  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

Nor  it  is  always  the  fault  of  the  citizen  that  mistakes 
are  made,  for  how  should  he  know  the  aspirant  to  honors, 
who  peradventure  does  not  know  himself,  and  is  liable 
at  any  moment  to  change  his  colors  if  not  his  character. 
Yet  this  was  not  the  case  in  the  unhappy  return  of  Wood- 
row  Wilson  to  the  presidency.  He  was  well  enough  known. 
The  whole  world  could  not  choose  but  know  him.  But  the 
voters  of  the  middle  and  farther  west  could  not  stomach 
the  specimens  of  fossilized  statesmanship  the  tricky  manip 
ulators  of  rotten  republicanism  at  the  east  set  before  them 
for  their  suffrages  in  the  place  of  two  such  men  as  Theo 
dore  Roosevelt  and  Hiram  Johnson. 

From  the  first  California  has  been  a  land  of  high  sur 
prise.  We  took  it  over  because  AVC  could  after  a  little 
mild  fighting  with  Mexico,  stealing  it  from  the  thief  who 
stole  it  from  the  aborigines,  and  behold  a  gold  mine  which 
turned  the  heads  of  half  the  world.  The  soil  was  valueless 
for  agricultural  purposes,  people  thought,  parched  in 
summer  and  flooded  in  winter,  yet  ere  long  we  were  feed 
ing  people  who  shortly  before  were  feeding  us,  first  with 
grain  and  then  with  fruit. 

Politically  further  surprises;  passing  the  usual  terri 
torial  limbo  while  dancing  attendance  upon  our  black  men, 
we  sprang  full  fledged  a  state  into  the  union,  to  be  mis 
ruled  by  southern  chivalry  until  the  northern  pork-sellers 
arose  and  purified  society.  Then  was  heard  the  cry  of 
the  Irish  drayman  upon  the  suburban  sandhills,  "The 
Chinese  must  go ! "  and  another  iniquity  was  upon  us. 

But  never  before  throughout  these  several  years  of  the 
unexpected  had  we  aspired  to  determine  the  fate  of  a  presi 
dential  election,  an  achievement  least  anticipated  by  those 
whose  instrument  it  was.  The  real  cause  of  it  all  lies  far 
ther  back  with  certain  super-smart  politicians  from  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  at  the  Chicago  convention  in  1912, 
playing  such  devil  pranks  while  completing  the  wreckage 
of  the  republican  party,  as  in  any  other  profession  would 


FALLACIES    AND    FANTASIES  283 

have  opened  the  back  door  'for  them.  Lying,  theft,  and 
legerdemain  were  among  the  minor  accomplishments  of 
those  honorable  gentlemen,  which  brought  about  their  own 
downfall,  with  lasting  infamy,  together  with  the  birth  of 
the  progressive  party,  and  the  infliction  of  at  least  two 
terms  of  democratic  rule. 

Coming  to  the  election  of  1916  politics  took  a  flight 
downward  from  the  lofty  regions  of  the  east  to  the  more 
placid  plains  of  the  west.  At  the  nominating  convention 
which  should  have  named  Roosevelt  and  Johnson,  and  who 
had  they  run  as  progressive  republicans  would  probably 
have  been  elected,  another  aspirant  was  brought  forward 
who  was  too  much  like  Taft  to  be  acceptable. 

The  honor  of  turning  progressive  California  over  to  a 
democratic  president  for  a  second  term  of  misrule  may 
properly  be  divided  between  certain  misguided  men ;  first, 
the  republican  candidate  himself,  whom  if  his  guardians  had 
kept  at  home  would  have  received  the  vote  of  the  state. 
and  secondly,  certain  self-constituted  representatives  of  the 
old  guard  who  imagined  themselves  the  whole  show,  and 
sought  to  run  things  accordingly. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  is  -a  sincere,  honest,  capable,  and 
patriotic  man,  unselfish  and  unafraid.  He  cleansed  the 
New  York  police  pot,  fought  the  Spaniards,  closed  the 
Russo-Japan  war  episode,  thereby  saving  one  or  two  hun 
dred  thousand  lives — the  question  is  were  they  worth  sav 
ing,  who  would  at  any  time  plot  to  destroy  us? — inaugu 
rated  the  Panama  canal  which  had  awaited  his  coming  for 
four  hundred  years,  revolutionized  commercial  and  polit 
ical  integrity  in  America  and  raised  the  standard  of  indus 
trial  ethics  throughout  the  world,  and  many  other  praise 
worthy  measures  and  benefactions,  and  after  serving  two 
terms  as  president  voluntarily  retired,  leaving  his  country 
standing  higher  than  ever  before  as  an  opulent  first  class 
power  of  honor  and  integrity,  with  a  man  to  take  his  place 
pledged  to  pursue  his  policies  and  carry  out  his  benign 
and  progressive  measures,  but  who  proved  to  be  only  a 


284  IN   THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

mass  of  flesh,  that  melted  before  the  sinister  influence  of 
New  York  money  when  left  to  stand  alone.  Later  Theo 
dore  Eoosevelt,  when  eastern  sharpers  would  again  trick 
him  out  of  place,  to  save  his  country  from  the  disastrous 
consequences  of  another  democratic  administration,  he  re 
linquished  all  further  effort  for  himself  and  gave  his  hearty 
support  to  his  competitor,  an  act  of  pure  patriotism  never 
surpassed  in  this  or  any  other  country.  And  Hiram  John 
son  is  in  every  way  his  acknowledged  peer. 

It  is  a  long  time  since  California  has  had  at  Washing 
ton  an  honest,  intelligent  and  efficient  senator  like  James 
D.  Phelan.  I  know  of  no  other  in  these  latter  days.  They 
have  all  been  either  tools  of  the  railroad,  or  slaves  to  party, 
cranks,  or  devotees  to  ignorance,  prejudice,  or  stupidity. 

The  most  serious  menace  to  American  interests  at  the 
present  time,  as  I  have  said  is  not  Japanese  war  but  Japa 
nese  women,  who  are  rapidly  filling  town  houses  and  farm 
camps,  and  breeding  another  alien  race  of  American  citi 
zens  to  our  everlasting  disgrace. 

Senator  Phelan  did  what  he  could  to  avert  this  evil 
from  California,  but  the  indifference  and  timidity  of  his 
confreres  were  against  him.  Fight?  Yes,  I  would  fight 
Japan  before  I  would  admit  her  women,  or  humiliate  my 
self  by  placating  her  extraordinary  sensibilities,  or  toler 
ate  any  interference  in  the  government  of  the  United  States 
such  as  the  cowardice  of  the  democratic  congress  tends  to 
invite.  We  have  delivered  her  from  the  chains  of  barbar 
ism,  given  her  the  Pacific  ocean,  and  now  she  wants  the 
continent,  and  intends  one  day  to  get  it,  if  not  by  force 
of  arms,  then  by  the  subtler  means  of  breeding  in  our 
midst  a  race  to  take  our  place. 

The  lamentable  policy  of  Congress  in  admitting  Japa 
nese  women  will  soon  render  California  undesirable  as  a 
residence  for  white  people,  while  the  five  or  ten  million  yel 
low  citizens  which  will  in  due  time  appear  will  prove  a  very 
fair  beginning  toward  the  Asiatic  occupation  of  America. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE    ECONOMICS    OF    EDUCATION 

IT  is  a  somewhat  startling  fact,  but  one  that  can  be 
well  enough  established,  that  more  time  and  money 
are  spent  in  studies  of  no  practical  value  than  in  those 
that  yield  an  adequate  return.  We  might  go  farther  and 
say,  were  we  inclined  to  be  captious,  that  more  time  and 
money  are  spent  in  efforts  that  were  better  omitted,  in 
studies  that  tend  to  obstruct  initiative  and  embarrass  de 
velopment  than  in  those  which  foster  independent  thought 
and  stimulate  natural  ability. 

Half  of  what  is  taught  in  schools  and  colleges  is  super 
fluous,  and  a  superfluous  education  too  often  kills  the  bud 
ding  genius  which  otherwise  might  bring  forth  fruit  of 
its  own.  In  authorship  no  less  than  in  business,  in  pur 
suits  which  one  would  think  would  be  in  the  highest  degree 
benefited  by  the  higher  education,  we  see  the  best  results 
when  there  has  been  the  least  training. 

It  is  true  that  while  superlative  effort  in  any  one  direc 
tion  tends  to  indifference  or  incapacity  in  other  directions, 
yet  the  fact  remains  that  whatever  is  to  be  done  naturally 
finds  its  way  to  him  who  can  best  accomplish  it.  More 
than  ever  before  with  the  ever  increasing  intensity  of  life 
the  work  of  the  world  falls  into  the  hands  of  experts,  who 
can  accomplish  the  most  in  the  shortest  time,  that  is  to 
say  of  specialists,  who  have  learned  to  do  one  thing  exceed 
ingly  well,  rather  than  many  things  indifferently  well. 
Wherefore  less  university  extension  with  more  concentra 
tion  might  be  desirable. 

The  student  who  fails  to  qualify  as  in  some  way  supe 

285 


286  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

rior  to  the  average  may  consider  himself  a  failure  so  far 
as  his  college  education  is  concerned.  And  how  many  thou 
sands  of  that  sort  are  turned  out  from  our  institutions  of 
learning  every  year  to  the  disappointment  of  their  friends, 
and  often  to  the  wrecking  of  their  own  career,  as  it  is 
then  too  late  to  take  up  a  new  line  of  effort,  working  up 
from  the  bottom  with  the  energy  and  enthusiasm  of  youth. 
They  might  have  it  in  them  to  make  a  Lincoln  or  a  Lloyd- 
George  working  along  other  lines,  even  though  failing  in 
the  one  selected. 

Modern  education  of  the  exalted  sort  is  a  constant 
straining  to  lift  the  common  people  out  of  a  state  of  useful 
ness  into  a  sphere  of  economic  inefficiency.  Of  what  prac 
tical  use  is  the  large  army  of  teachers  but  to  teach,  deriv 
ing  their  support  from  the  untaught  ?  It  is  said  that  about 
one-fourth  of  college  students  enter  with  the  idea  of  be 
coming  lawyers.  Now  there  are  twice  as  many  judges  and 
courts  of  law  as  are  necessary  or  beneficial,  and  ten  times 
as  many  lawyers.  Hence  there  is  here  a  great  waste  of  hu 
man  energy  and  capability.  Use  or  enjoyment  may  be 
found  in  a  classical  education,  with  comparative  philology 
and  archaeology,  the  pursuit  of  which  if  after  all  it  cannot 
be  put  down  to  pastime  must  be  in  the  main  regarded  as 
wasted  labor. 

Pity  the  poor  father  who  was  constrained  to  say,  ' '  Yes, 
I  longed  to  give  my  boy  a  better  chance  in  life  than  I  had. 
I  worked,  and  saved,  that  I  might  pour  my  life's  efforts 
into  the  hopper  of  advancement,  and  gather  from  the  mills 
of  the  gods  my  reward;  but  in  the  end  I  could  only  say 
with  Aaron  at  Mount  Sinai,  "I  cast  my  gold  into  the  fire 
and  there  came  out  this  calf." 

A  century  or  two  ago  the  boy  who  knew  a  little  Latin 
was  regarded  as  educated,  though  he  knew  nothing  else. 
Here  was  concentration  with  a  vengeance,  the  concentra 
tion  of  ancient  superstitions.  Add  to  this  Greek,  that 
he  might  repeat  the  sayings  of  Plato  in  his  own  language 
and  contemplate  the  morality  of  the  gods  on  Olympus, 


THE    ECONOMICS    OF    EDUCATION         287 

and  he  was  learned  indeed.  Or  if  a  prelate  he  would  know 
Hebrew,  the  better  to  fathom  the  nature  of  God  and  the 
ways  of  man  in  that  language. 

This  to  us  seems  foolishness,  but  just  as  foolish  to  those 
who  shall  come  after  us  will  appear  the  teaching  of  foreign 
languages  in  our  schools,  leaving  our  own  but  half  learned, 
— languages  of  which  no  use  hereafter  will  be  made,  unless 
indeed  some  wish  to  study  kaiser  kultur  and  the  ethics  of 
German  blood-lust  and  internationalism,  in  which  case  we 
will  admit  that  some  language  other  than  English  is  neces 
sary.  Educators  whose  good  taste  and  sound  judgment 
find  profit  in  German  propaganda,  illustrated  with  such 
examples  as  the  rape  of  Belgium,  should  surely  employ  the 
German  language. 

It  is  a  favorable  indication  of  Jhe  coming  common  sense 
to  the  learned  men  of  Germany  when  the  erudite  Fritz 
Mauthner  writes  in  the  Berliner  Tageblatt,  "What  do  we 
care,  what  does  our  youth  care  for  the  absurd  Greek  and 
Roman  legends  and  myths?  The  classical  school  has  ren 
dered  great  services  to  the  fatherland,  but  its  time  is  over. 
The  world  does  not  stand  still.  The  stern  realities  of  the 
present  have  an  imperative  claim  on  us.  Our  children 
represent  the  future,  and  the  school  is  the  future  of  this 
future.  We  want  facts  instead  of  empty  words  and  for 
mulas.  We  want  a  democratic  school,  we  ask  for  the  boy 
of  the  workingman  the  facilities  for  becoming,  one  day, 
if  he  be  otherwise  fit  for  the  job,  military  attache  with 
our  greatest  embassies.  And  of  what  use  are  Greek  and 
Latin  for  such  a  position  ? ' ' 

Says  Mr  Lewis,  high  school  principal  of  Philadelphia, 
"Tradition  has  riveted  upon  our  children  the  ball  and 
chain  of  foreign  languages  and  algebra,  and  has  impris 
oned  them,  in  tedious  isolation  from  the  real  world  in 
which  their  instincts  tell  them  they  are  to  play  their  part. 
It  has  set  them  the  hopeless  and  profitless  task  of  mum 
bling  over  the  dead  formulas  of  a  dead  past  and  repeating 
the  shibboleths  that  pedantry  has  prescribed  as  the  pass- 


288  IN   THESE   LATTER   DAYS 

words  of  culture.  It  has  dimmed  the  eyes,  whitened  the 
cheek,  and  twisted  the  spine  of  our  womanhood  delving 
among  the  stones  of  Rome  when  she  should  have  been  gain 
ing  strength  for  her  day,  informing  her  spirit  concerning 
the  social  problems  that  her  sweetness  and  sympathy  fit 
her  best  to  solve,  and  learning  to  bake  good  home-made 
bread.  It  has  shoved  on  to  the  street  as  failures  our  bright 
est  youths  because  they  refused  to  turn  themselves  into 
phonographs  to  drawl  out  joyless  jingles." 

There  are  a  dozen  foreign  languages,  dead  or  alive, 
most  of  the  dead  ones  fortunately  quite  dead,  that  is  to  say 
obsolete,  their  place  in  the  college  curriculum  vacant,  which 
is  a  good  indication.  Even  now  when  Latin  is  taught, 
bow  much  of  it  does  the  boy  know  six  months  after  leaving 
school ;  or  if  well  schooled  in  it  of  what  use  will  it  be  unless 
he  proposes  to  write  a  dictionary  ?  Anyone  can  see  the 
inconvenience  and  uselessness  of  dragging  these  Latin 
names  at  the  tail  of  business,  the  business  of  the  doctor, 
the  druggist,  the  gardener. 

Our  children  are  forever  studying  foreign  languages 
and  never  learning  them,  or  if  they  learn  them  never  using 
them ;  and  as  there  is  no  knowledge  in  a  language,  but  only 
sounds,  the  work  is  almost  wholly  wasted.  In  Holland,  for 
example,  many  children  of  fifteen  can  speak  four  languages 
besides  their  own;  can  you  find  anywhere  greater  block 
heads  than  in  Holland? 

Though  not  a  collegian,  we  must  not  infer  that  persons 
of  this  category  are  not  educated.  They  drink  in  knowl 
edge  it  may  be  at  every  pore,  all  that  was  not  already 
theirs  by  intuition.  They  learned  grammar  but  not  the 
rules  of  grammar;  geography,  but  not  by  formulas.  They 
could  not  help  but  learn.  No  six  months  course  or  four 
years  term;  for  them  life  was  too  short  for  such  indul 
gences. 

In  my  historical  work  my  assistants  never  let  an  unfa 
miliar  language  stand  in  their  way.  High  Dutch  or  low. 


THE    ECONOMICS    OF    EDUCATION         289 

Scandinavian,  old  Spanish  or  modern  Russian,  it  was  all 
the  same.  "Send  me  some  one  once  or  twice  to  give  the 
accent  and  I  will  do  the  rest,"  they  used  to  say.  My  Rus 
sian,  Petrof,  when  he  came  to  America  and  entered  the 
union  army  could  not  speak  a  word  of  English,  but  before 
the  war  was  over  he  was  writing  for  illiterates  letters  home 
in  their  own  language. 

The  higher  education  does  not  seem  to  stimulate  original 
thought  or  action.  How  many  prominent  business  men  are 
there  who  owe  their  success  to  education;  how  many  are 
there  who  owe  their  success  to  lack  of  education  ?  Even  our 
greatest  authors,  as  Howells,  James,  Mary  Wilkins,  Mark 
Twain,  James  "Whitcomb  Riley,  Joel  Chandler  Harris, 
Frances  Hodgson  Burnett,  H.  C.  Bunner,  Bret  Harte, 
George  W.  Cable,  Frank  Stockton  were  not  college  men. 

"If  you  feel  you  have  a  spark  of  the  divine  fire  of 
creative  literature  in  you,  keep  away  from  college,  unless 
you  are  content  to  have  its  glow  reduced  to  the  ember- 
heat  of  the  merely  critical  mind,"  is  the  verdict  of  Mr 
Ellsworth,  former  head  of  the  Century  company,  who  says 
further:  "One  trouble  is  that  authorship  is  likely  to  be 
a  matter  of  chance.  The  young  man  who  goes  in  for 
technical  training  knows  just  what  he  wants,  and  gets  it. 
And  more  and  more  young  men  are  seeking  assured  pro 
fessions  for  which  they  can  get  definite  technical  training. 
Some  of  the  writers  who  had  no  college  training  are 
Arnold  Bennett,  Gilbert  K.  Chesterton,  William  Black, 
Rider  Haggard,  John  Masefield,  George  Moore,  Eden  Phill- 
potts,  and  Israel  Zangwill.  Kipling  went  to  the  United 
Services  college.  George  Bernard  Shaw  was  a  poor  scholar 
and  left  school  at  the  age  of  fifteen  to  enter  a  real-estate 
office." 

England's  premier,  David  Lloyd-George,  the  strongest 
man  in  the  British  empire,  was  the  son  of  a  Welsh  baptist 
schoolmaster,  who  died  in  the  child's  infancy,  leaving  the 
boy  to  ignorance  and  poverty,  but  who  made  a  man  of  him 
self.  America's  chief  magistrate  was  brought  up  in  a  land 

10 


290  IN   THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

of  plenty  in  an  atmosphere  of  learning  and  refinement, 
became  an  accomplished  scholar  and  teacher,  and  made 
himself  what  he  is. 

Long  ago  Locke  complained  that  the  English  language 
was  not  being  taught  in  the  schools,  and  that  subjects  and 
methods  of  teaching  had  little  bearing  upon  actual  life. 
He  asserted  that  classical  studies  were  being  forced  on 
many  boys,  who,  on  account  of  the  lack  of  certain  natural 
aptitudes,  could  not  profit  by  them;  that  one's  natural 
genius  should  be  carried  as  far  as  it  could,  but  to  attempt 
the  putting  another  upon  him  would  be  but  labor  in  vain, 
and  what  is  so  plastered  on  would  at  best  sit  but  unto- 
wardly,  and  have  always  hanging  to  it  the  ungraceful  ness 
of  constraint  and  affectation. 

If  then,  a  smattering  of  many  things  stands  no  chance 
beside  pronounced  superiority  in  one  thing,  may  we  not 
safely  conclude  that  a  large  percentage  of  the  work  of 
the  schools,  tending  as  it  does  to  widespread  superficial- 
ness,  is  worse  than  thrown  away  ?  "In  very  truth, ' '  Homer 
Edmiston  says,  "the  waste  involved  in  our  academic  sys 
tem,  waste  of  money  and  energy,  but  chiefly  of  all-precious 
time,  is  nothing  short  of  appalling.  Instead  of  an  edu 
cation  adapted  to  individual  needs,  instead  of  a  natural 
and  equal  training  of  eye,  hand,  and  brain,  every  child, 
whatever  may  be  his  gifts,  aptitudes,  and  future  pros 
pects,  is  put  into  our  huge,  clumsy  mill,  and  often  not 
taken  out  of  it  till  he  reaches  manhood.  There  are  not 
many  many  young  men  who,  in  justice  to  themselves  and 
to  society,  ought  not,  from  something  like  the  age  of  six 
teen  years,  to  bestow  the  larger  part  of  their  time  in  get 
ting  ready  for  their  business  of  life.  And  since  it  is  gen 
erally  confessed  that  our  collegians  devote  four  precious 
years  of  their  lives  to  what  is  called  liberal  culture,  to 
pretending  to  learn  much,  that  is,  and  actually  to  learning 
very  little,  there  is  surely  a  strong  prima  facie  case  against 
the  institution  which,  taking  from  each  rising  generation 
so  much  of  its  valuable  time,  does  not  fulfill  its  main  and 


THE    ECONOMICS    OF    EDUCATION         291 

ostensible  purpose,  but  is  compelled  to  rely  on  incidental 
advantages  in  order  to  justify  its  existence. " 

" These  college  freaks  or  failures,"  as  a  practical  pro 
fessor  observes,  "are  not  so  much  uneducated  as  misedu- 
cated.  Their  faculties  are  active,  but  they  are  undiscip 
lined  and  misdirected,  and  the  result  of  their  thinking  is 
largely  erroneous.  For  these  difficulties  our  public  school 
system  furnishes  no  adequate  remedy.  Two  things  are 
especially  to  be  noted  in  our  popular  school  education; 
it  usually  leads  to  no  interest  in  literature  or  acquaint 
ance  with  it,  nor  to  any  sense  of  the  value  of  history  for 
modern  men, — a  very  serious  defect;  and  its  most  charac 
teristic  and  general  result  is  a  distaste  for  manual  labor. 
We  have  some  good  schools,  of  course;  but  great  numbers 
of  teachers  and  principals  of  our  high  schools  in  country 
places  have  for  several  years  explicitly  taught  their  pupils, 
and  urged  upon  parents,  the  sentiment  that  in  this  country 
education  should  raise  all  who  obtain  it  above  the  neces 
sity  of  drudgery;  that  there  are  better  ways  of  making 
a  living  than  manual  labor  at  so  much  for  a  day's  work, 
and  that  these  higher  ways  will  be  open  to  those  who  get 
an  education.  All  this  has  resulted  in  a  dainty,  effemi 
nate,  and  false  view  of  the  world  as  a  place  where  only 
uneducated  and  inferior  people  need  work  hard,  or  engage 
in  toilsome  or  unattractive  employments." 

As  a  rule  the  boy  who  goes  to  college  is  spoiled  for 
business,  that  is  for  beginning  at  the  bottom  and  work 
ing  his  way  up.  If  an  established  business  awaits  his 
management,  that  is  a  different  matter.  Neither  does  a 
pedagogue  make  the  best  man  of  affairs.  Our  worthy  presi 
dent  boasts  his  ignorance  of  business,  though  perfectly  will 
ing  to  assume  the  management  of  the  business  of  the  United 
States. 

The  student  in  college  learns  only  such  things  as  were 
well  known  before ;  he  is  not  only  told  the  facts,  but  he  is 
told  how  to  construe  and  apply  them,  or  if  his  instructions 
are  speculative  he  is  told  what  he  must  believe  concerning 


292  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  farmer's  boy,  or  the  me 
chanic's,  or  the  merchant's,  having  been  given  the  rudi 
ments  of  an  education  learns  from  practical  experience 
how  to  determine  principles  and  apply  methods. 

Dating  from  the  age  of  seven  years,  there  will  be  ten 
years  at  school  preparing  for  college  before  the  average 
boy  has  chosen  a  profession  or  thought  of  specializing, 
the  state  of  indefiniteness  of  greater  or  less  degree  remain 
ing  through  his  college  course.  Half  of  this  time  at  least 
is  thrown  away;  seven  years  out  of  a  boy's  life  before  he 
reaches  manhood;  it  is  as  bad  as  Prussian  militarism  but 
for  the  subsequent  slaughter.  For  the  boy  who  special 
izes  and  enters  upon  his  life  work  at  twelve,  whether  in 
an  intellectual  or  a  mechanical  occupation,  will  outstrip  the 
other  nine  times  in  ten.  So  settled  is  this  idea  in  the  minds 
of  business  men  that  they  invariably  prefer  for  their  serv 
ice  a  young  man  with  only  a  common  school  education  to 
a  college  graduate. 

Now  and  then  we  see  education  turning  a  somersault 
and  taking  a  backward  turn,  the  wickedest  places  and  per 
sons  on  earth  to  become  pious  and  the  pious  to  become 
wicked.  There  is  Texas,  and  you  may  add  Oklahoma  if 
you  choose,  not  long  since  famous  as  the  land  of  fire- 
eaters,  of  cutthroats,  desperadoes,  and  professors  of  the 
impromptu  duello;  and  for  hereditary  feuds,  vindictive 
strife  and  the  vendetta  we  might  include  the  first  families 
of  Virginia  and  the  last  families  of  Georgia,  once  notori 
ous  sinners,  now  notorious  saints,  as  Arthur  Dutton  thus 
testifies.  "  Indications  are  numerous  in  various  parts  of 
the  country,  particularly  in  the  middle  and  far  west,  that 
we  are  threatened  with  a  revival  of  the  old  New  England 
puritan  spirit  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Symptoms  of 
atavism,  or  the  recurrence  in  the  individual  characteris 
tics  of  a  remote  ancestor,  are  found  in  the  Texas  law  that 
forbids  public  card  playing.  Eecently  an  old  lady  on  a 
Pullman  car  was  interrupted  by  the  conductor  while  she 
was  playing  a  game  of  solitaire,  on  the  ground  that  she 


THE    ECONOMICS    OF    EDUCATION         293 

was  breaking  the  law ;  in  the  laws  in  some  Texas  and  Okla 
homa  counties  prohibiting  public  billiard  or  pool  tables 
and  bowling  alleys;  in  the  barring  from  athletic  honors 
of  any  pupil  of  the  Manhattan  high  school  of  Topeka  who 
uses  tobacco  in  any  form.  Such  examples  of  a  revival  of 
the  old  puritanic  ideas  are  constantly  occurring.  The  Vir 
ginia  legislature  has  before  it  a  bill  regulating  the  dimen 
sions  of  women's  garb,  such  as  requiring  a  maximum  skirt 
height  from  the  ground  of  four  inches  and  a  maximum 
low  neck  of  three  inches.  Oregon  has  a  law  forbidding 
the  selling  of  anything  but  bakery  products  on  Sunday; 
a  Lebanon  baker  was  arrested  for  selling  a  can  of  pork 
and  beans  on  Sunday.  Herman  Trent  of  Englewood,  wrote 
a  letter  to  the  New  York  evening  Sun,  in  which  he  said : 
'If  I  had  my  way  I  would  not  only  close  up  all  the  saloons 
and  race-tracks,  but  I  would  close  all  tobacco  shops,  con 
fectionery  stores,  delicatessen  shops,  and  other  places  where 
gastronomic  deviltries  are  purveyed,  all  low  theatres  and 
bathing  beaches.  I  would  forbid  the  selling  of  gambling 
devices,  such  as  playing  cards,  dice,  checkers,  and  chess 
sets;  I  would  abolish  dancing;  I  would  abolish  the  sale 
of  coffee  and  tea,  and  I  would  forbid  the  making  or  sale 
of  pastry,  pie,  cake,  and  such  like  trash.'  The  foregoing 
samples  remind  one  strongly  of  the  old  New  England 
puritan  laws,  which,  among  other  things,  forbade  the  hus 
band  to  kiss  his  wife  or  the  parents  to  kiss  their  children 
on  Sunday;  refused  food  and  shelter  to  heretics;  would 
permit  no  one  but  an  ordained  clergyman  to  cross  a  river 
on  Sunday;  cut  off  the  ears  and  burned  holes  through 
the  tongues  of  Quakers,  stripped  them  to  the  waist,  lashed 
them  to  the  tails  of  carts  and  whipped  them  from  the 
colony.  The  puritans  had  ordinances  regulating  the  most 
minute  details  of  private  everyday  personal  life.  I  know 
whereof  I  speak,  for  my  paternal  ancestors  were  Con 
necticut  puritans  in  the  seventeenth  century,  but  they  re 
formed  in  later  generations,  and  the  doings  of  their  fore- 


294  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

bears  were  part  of  the  folklore  of  my  childhood.  Are  those 
strange  old  days  coming  back?" 

The  evolution  of  our  political,  educational,  and  indus 
trial  institutions  has  surpassed  the  evolution  of  the  people, 
tampered  as  the  country  has  been  by  the  constant  inflow 
of  baser  elements  from  abroad.  At  the  same  time  it  would 
seem  to  an  ordinary  observer  that  our  methods  of  public 
school  management  are  too  loose,  too  lavish;  that  they  are 
wanton  and  extravagant  to  a  degree  that  renders  the  high 
purposes  of  their  organization  demoralizing;  in  a  word 
that  to  pauperize  schools  is  not  the  best  way  to  good  citi 
zenship. 

There  is  a  style  of  pedagogy  that  obstructs  rather  than 
aids  learning.  The  pedant  though  he  may  be  highly 
learned  in  some  things  is  generally  a  fool  in  most  things, 
and  the  very  highly  learned  man  is  always  half  pedantic. 
No  one  sees  or  feels  this  more  than  the  average  professor 
himself.  As  one  college  president  said,  ' '  the  academic  mind 
does  not  test  its  theories;  it  works  in  a  vacuum.  Even  if 
a  good  critic  of  another,  it  is  an  unsafe  guide." 

"With  no  malice  on  my  tongue,  but  with  a  tincture  of 
irony  in  my  heart,  I  once  remarked  to  an  unlicked  native 
of  Boston,  where  culture  is  ground  to  so  sharp  an  edge  as 
to  be  invisible  to  the  naked  eye,  while  overlooking  with 
real  admiration  some  specimens  of  his  work — he  was  an 
artist  of  no  mean  repute: — 

"You  people,"  I  said,  "stand  at  about  the  top  of  the 
world  in  everything. " 

"We  think  so,"  he  replied  demurely. 

That  closed  the  argument. 

Every  child  is  born  into  the  world  of  knowledge  know 
ing  nothing,  and  what  he  learns  here  he  has  to  leave  when 
he  dies.  Unlike  money,  knowledge  cannot  be  devised  or 
inherited.  What  is  acquired  here  can  be  used  only  here. 
And  were  one  to  spend  every  moment  of  one's  time  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave  in  gathering  from  the  known  and 


THE    ECONOMICS    OF    EDUCATION         295 

the  unknown,  the  accumulated  store  would  be  but  the 
smallest  particle  compared  with  what  would  be  left  un 
touched. 

The  super-learned  man  may  gloat  over  his  store  as  the 
miser  over  his  riches;  after  all  he  is  but  a  poor  fool  in 
most  things.  He  cannot  eat  drink  or  sleep  his  learning 
any  more  than  a  rich  man  his  gold.  He  cannot  sell  it  or 
give  it  away;  more  miserly  than  the  miser  he  can  only 
drivel  over  it  and  hug  it  to  his  bosom  unable  to  impart 
but  the  smallest  modicum  of  it  to  his  fellows. 

What  good  does  it  him;  how  does  a  surfeit  of  scholar 
ship  benefit  one  any  more  than  a  surfeit  of  gold  1  He  may 
head  an  institution  of  learning  and  pose  as  a  teacher,  but 
he  does  not  teach.  The  successful  presidents  of  our  great 
universities  are  before  all  else  men  of  sound  practical  com 
mon  sense. 

Youth  is  endowed  with  native  ability  of  various  grades. 
Some  are  fitted  for  an  executive  office,  while  those  who 
would  not  make  a  first  class  clerk,  or  mechanic  may  still 
find  useful  employment  ready  at  his  hand.  "As  for  intel 
lectual  discipline,"  says  Mr  Edmiston,  "which  the  edu 
cational  theorists  of  our  own  day  claim  as  the  peculiar 
distinction  of  our  formal  and  academic  schemes,  if  the 
history  of  great  men  and  great  epochs  proves  anything, 
it  is  that  the  only  discipline  worth  the  name  is  that  which 
comes  to  the  mind  from  working  at  its  proper  and  nat 
urally  chosen  task.  A  mind  trained  along  the  line  of  its 
true  development  grows  and  expands  as  naturally  as  does 
a  tree  planted  in  the  right  conditions  of  soil,  air,  and  sun 
light.  And  to  discipline  the  growing  human  intellect  in 
a  great  variety  .of  subjects  is  about  as  sensible  as  it  would 
be  to  split  the  stem  of  a  sapling  to  make  it  put  forth 
branches.  Intellectual  discipline  is  the  result  and  by 
product  of  successful  intellectual  endeavor;  and  learning 
with  the  expectation  and  even  the  intention  of  forgetting, 
the  prevailing  habit  in  our  schools  of  every  grade,  is  not 
successful  intellectual  endeavor.  In  fine,  the  only  good 


296  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

excuse  for  devoting  time  and  labor  to  learning  any  subject 
is  mastery  and  possession,  complete  and  permanent,  of 
knowledge  and  forms  of  skill  that  prepare  for  the  busi 
ness  of  life.  Considering  that  the  great  majority  of  stu 
dents  have  their  own  careers  to  make,  it  is  perfectly  cer 
tain  that  every  year  of  academic  education  restricts  their 
opportunities  of  earning  a  livelihood,  and,  if  they  are  not 
going  into  a  learned  profession,  wastes  their  time  or  worse 
than  wastes  it.  The  best  learning  years  of  life  are  passed 
before  they  are  out  of  college,  and  have  been  spent  almost 
entirely  on  books.  It  is  for  this  reason,  and  no  other,  that 
such  excessive  numbers  crowd  into  the  learned  professions. ' ' 
Nothing  can  be  more  beneficial  than  a  technical  edu 
cation  as  the  basis  of  a  pursuit  to  be  followed  through  life, 
provided  it  is  not  carried  too  far,  so  that  something  is 
left  for  the  student  to  work  out  and  accomplish  for  him 
self.  "We  have  generally  believed,"  says  George  Kibbe 
Turner,  "that  for  many  years  the  teaching  of  the  sciences 
has  been  on  the  increase  in  our  public  schools.  And  in 
the  greater  and  more  advanced  cities  this  is  so.  But  it  is 
not  so  with  our  high  schools  as  a  whole.  By  the  same 
figures  of  the  commissioner  of  education  made  in  1910 
for  our  high  schools — by  which  half  of  the  pupils  were  en 
gaged  in  taking  geometry — less  than  one-sixth  were  taking 
physics  and  zoology,  and  only  one-fourteenth  were  taking 
chemistry.  Not  only  that,  but  in  all  these  and  in  the  less 
commonly  taught  sciences,  there  had  been  a  very  marked 
decrease  in  the  proportion  of  the  high  school  pupils  taking 
them  during  the  previous  ten  or  twenty  years.  The  dead 
hand  of  the  medieval  scholar,  who  rules  American  high 
schools,  was  not  getting  weaker,  but  stronger.  So  the  thing 
is  not  changed  at  all  in  high  schools.  It  is  a  mere  repeti 
tion  of  the  process  in  the  grammar  school  below,  exagger 
ated.  The  hand  of  tradition  still  forces  on  our  children 
there  still  more  obsolete  studies  that  they  do  not  need, 
and  will  not  take ;  still  keeps  away  from  them  the  essentials 


THE    ECONOMICS    OF    EDUCATION         297 

of  the  modern  education  we  all  know  today  that  we  should 
have." 

That  there  is  a  faultiness  in  our  system  of  education 
as  in  our  system  of  government,  defects  in  public  peda 
gogy  as  in  prescribed  religion,  few  will  deny.  The  first 
trouble  is  the  general  looseness  and  irresponsibility  attend 
ing  the  administration  of  affairs  where  one  party  gives 
the  order  and  another  pays  for  the  goods.  Those  who 
clamor  loudest  for  more,  more  and  better,  more  books  and 
better  houses,  more  machinery  to  work  with  and  to  play 
with,  pay  the  least.  All  that  the  poor  can  get  out  of  the 
rich;  all  that  the  laborites,  who  even  shirk  their  poll-tax, 
and  pay  nothing  toward  the  support  of  the  government 
they  so  love  to  dominate,  all  that  they  can  rightfully  or 
wrongfully  get  out  of  others  is  so  much  gain  to  them. 
Meanwhile  petty  politicians,  demagogues,  and  all  who  want 
the  vote  of  the  poor  toiler,  all  who  are  lazy  and  impecu 
nious  rack  their  brains  for  excuses  for  providing  for  them 
selves  useless  articles  for  others  to  pay  for. 

Pray  tell  me  why  a  school  teacher  should  be  given  a 
pension  any  more  than  a  shoemaker;  does  he  not  receive 
a  fair  salary  from  which  he  may  if  he  chooses  save  suffi 
cient  for  his  future  needs?  If  with  steady  employment 
for  a  period  of  time  he  declines  to  do  this,  he  does  not 
deserve  public  support  afterward.  Nor  do  I  see  any 
benefit  to  the  teacher  thus  to  pauperize  him  and  his  pro 
fession.  If  not  properly  paid  let  his  salary  be  increased, 
reducing  the  number  of  teachers  for  this  purpose  if  neces 
sary.  . 

While  we  are  about  it  let  us  pension  the  poor  lawyer, 
the  poor  doctor,  the  poor  policeman,  the  so  sleepy  judge, 
the  labor-leader,  the  suffragette,  the  poor  president.  Doubt 
less  Taft  and  Wilson  would  take  a  pension;  I  am  sure 
Roosevelt  or  Johnson  would  not.  There  is  nothing  specially 
arduous  in  teaching  five  or  six  hours  a  day  for  five  days  in 
a  week,  and  a  month  or  two  off  in  the  year  for  play, — no 


298  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

self-sacrifice  for  the  public  good,  no  work  done  that  is 
not  paid  for.  The  idea  springs  from  that  itching  for  a 
finger  on  the  public  funds  so  common  in  public  place 
holders. 

I  do  not  say  that  waste  in  education  is  so  greatly  to 
be  deplored.  There  are  so  many  examples  of  waste  in  high 
places  that  there  must  be  something  beneficial  about  it, 
something  we  do  not  understand, — waste  in  creation  and 
in  cosmic  routine;  waste  of  waters,  waste  of  lands;  waste 
of  fishes  birds  and  beasts,  waste  in  the  Washington  gov 
ernment;  waste  in  punitive  displays,  the  tax-payers  being 
the  only  ones  punished,  while  Huerta,  Carranza,  and  Villa 
only  laugh  at  the  rod  of  the  schoolmaster. 

Education  is  a  very  important  matter.  So  are  the 
waters  of  the  world  important,  the  seas  lakes  and  rivers, 
though  it  might  seem  a  waste  of  acreage,  that  is  if  the 
earth  was  made  for  man  and  not  for  fun, — two-thirds  of 
its  surface  water  and  half  of  the  remainder  mountain 
and  desert  waste.  God  saw  that  it  was  good,  all  that  he 
had  made,  but  man  has  yet  to  learn  of  what  use  to  God 
or  man  is  this  five-sixths  of  earth  given  over  to  fishes  and 
wild  beasts  whose  chief  occupation  is  to  eat  one  another. 

This  is  the  other  side  of  the  shield.  Would  we  pay 
homage  to  the  god  of  waste  we  have  a  precedent  in  the 
work  of  the  Almighty  himself,  who  made  all,  and  pro 
nounced  all  that  he  had  made  very  good;  though  a  world 
two-thirds  of  water  filled  with  fishes,  that  lead  happy  and 
useful  lives  devouring  one  another,  while  half  of  the  other 
third  is  desert  wastes  and  sterile  mountains  fit  only  for 
wild  beasts  and  noxious  reptiles  who  worship  their  maker 
as  do  the  fishes,  is  not  a  very  pertinent  illustration  in  advo 
cating  economy  in  education.  For  in  the  face  of  what 
seems  to  finite  minds  a  great  waste  of  acreage  is  crowded 
into  one-sixth  of  the  earth's  surface  poor  little  man,  for 
whom,  as  was  alleged,  all  was  made  that  was  made,  all 
for  man  and  not  for  fun,  for  voracious  man  if  you  choose, 
who  within  his  narrow  limits,  like  the  wild  beasts  and  the 


THE    ECONOMICS    OF    EDUCATION         299 

fishes  seems  to  delight  in  the  pastime  tending  to  his  own 
destruction. 

Though  we  may  conclude  that  if  in  the  making  of  a 
world  such  waste  were  permissible,  in  the  making  or  re 
making  of  man  it  were  no  less  so;  yet  we  should  bear 
in  mind  that  in  the  first  instance  in  some  respects  man, 
though  educated,  is  no  better  than  the  beasts,  worse  if 
anything  in  the  art  of  killing,  for  he  kills  to  feed  his  hate, 
while  the  shark  kills  to  feed  its  belly.  Furthermore,  when 
the  shark  has  eaten  his  fill  he  rests  from  killing.  But 
as  for  man,  his  measure  of  hate  is  never  full,  his  appetite 
grows  with  what  it  feeds  on,  and  his  potential  capacity 
for  slaughter  is  increased  by  education.  Nevertheless  we 
will  have  our  education,  regardless  of  how  many  more  are 
killed  by  it,  and  rightly  enough.  It  was  his  own  property 
that  God  saw  fit  to  use  as  he  did,  whereas  it  is  the  money 
of  others  that  the  culture  propagandists  would  employ. 

How  much  of  our  time,  might  we  ask,  is  it  worth  while 
to  spend  in  educating  ourselves?  From  the  many  mani 
fold  duties  and  obligations  of  life  what  proportion  of  our 
time  and  money  may  we  reasonably  and  sensibly  take  for 
the  education  of  the  on-coming  generation,  that  is  to  say 
for  instruction  and  training  in  an  institution  of  learning? 
All  of  it?  No,  that  would  leave  unprovided  the  necessi 
ties  of  life.  Half  of  it?  Well,  hardly.  A  quarter  of  it? 
We  must  draw  the  limit  somewhere,  for  as  it  is  now  it  is 
running  away  with  us.  The  unlimited  and  ever-increas 
ing  demands  of  education  are  as  unreasonable  as  they  are 
injurious. 

Ten  thousand  spend  a  lifetime  to  fit  themselves  to  teach 
other  ten  thousand,  who  would  prepare  themselves  to  in 
struct  a  hundred  thousand  how  to  direct  a  million  as  to 
the  best  course  to  pursue  through  the  brief  remainder  of 
life  that  is  left, — presently  all  disappearing,  while  the 
endless  round  of  remembering  and  forgetting  is  kept  up 
till  the  end  of  time. 


300  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

That  which  costs  nothing  is  valued  accordingly.  A 
public  matter  of  the  highest  importance  that  is  given  over 
to  politics,  to  demagogues,  laborites,  and  ignorant  and 
unprincipled  panderers  for  votes  is  respected  accordingly. 
Aside  from  the  constantly  increasing  cost  of  the  support 
of  public  instruction  the  unhappy  influences  emanating 
from  impolitic  methods  counteract  much  of  the  good  that 
should  be  done.  It  has  not  been  long  since  it  was  regarded 
as  a  mark  of  merit  in  a  salesman  to  get  the  better  of  a  cus 
tomer  in  some  way,  to  sell  him  goods  he  did  not  want, 
or  charge  for  them  more  than  they  were  worth,  or  induce 
him  to  buy  more  than  he  ever  could  pay  for.  It  is  a  good 
sign  that  all  this  is  changed,  that  the  principle  is  now 
recognized  and  practised  that  it  pays  better  to  treat  the 
customer  fairly  than  to  cheat  him. 

There  is  no  more  sense  or  justice  in  taxing  property 
to  pay  for  teaching  Latin  and  Greek,  or  French  and  Ger 
man  than  for  teaching  Chinese  Japanese  or  Yiddish. 

When  parents  had  to  buy  a  few  cheap  school  books 
for  their  children's  use  they  regarded  it  a  hardship.  Now 
every  foreigner  would  have  his  own  language  taught,  and 
some  of  them  have  secured  this  imposition.  Then  follows 
every  conceivable  way  to  spend  money,  until  a  smattering 
of  all  the  trades  and  occupations  must  be  taught,  doctors, 
dentists,  and  drum-majors  brought  into  commission,  every 
fad  and  fancy  indulged,  hot  luncheon  with  potential  pound 
cake  and  champagne  dessert,  and  finally  marriage  outfit 
and  support  through  life. 

Then  there  is  the  sledge-hammering  in  of  blind  beliefs. 
Of  all  education,  teaching  us  to  know  the  unknowable  is 
the  limit.  Religion  as  she  is  taught  by  Moses  and  the 
prophets,  by  Christ  and  the  Buddha,  by  Mohammed  and 
Joe  Smith,  by  Mrs  Eddy  and  Mrs  Tingley,  and  four-score 
others  with  thrice  as  many  thousand  different  interpreters, 
— gracious!  In  such  a  cataclysm  of  learning  made  sacred 
by  order  of  the  doctors,  how  shall  the  Almighty  know 
who  or  what  he  is,  or  where  he  stands  in  relation  to  all 


THE    ECONOMICS    OF    EDUCATION         301 

this  wisdom,  whose  expounders  know  so  much  more  about 
him  than  ever  he  knew  himself.  And  yet  the  world  over, 
and  even  among  our  own  people  who  should  know  better, 
who  do  know  better  but  are  loath  to  admit  it,  are  semi 
naries  of  theology  where  much  sophistry  is  taught  under 
color  of  divine  truth. 

No  small  part  of  what  is  imparted  as  knowledge  is  only 
speculation,  as  in  theology  and  the  spiritual  life,  psychol 
ogy,  and  scores  of  other  ologies  and  isms.  In  the  theo 
logical  seminary,  however,  which  the  Wall  street  sharper 
is  wont  to  build  for  his  soul 's  salvation,  the  sublime  reaches 
the  ridiculous, — theology,  which  treats  of  the  being  and 
attributes  of  God,  of  which  man  knows  nothing,  and  there 
fore  can  teach  nothing;  yet  the  young  divine  who  has 
learned  nothing,  may  rise  in  his  pulpit  and  preach  noth 
ing,  to  a  sleepy  congregation -that  hears  nothing  but  only 
twaddle.  Such  teaching  is  not  teaching,  but  parroting. 

Nor  can  I  understand  the  wisdom  of  opening  our  insti 
tutions  indiscriminately  to  the  free  use  of  aliens  who  in 
case  of  any  disagreement  will  not  scruple  to  use  the  knowl 
edge  here  obtained  to  further  our  destruction.  Nor  can 
I  see  the  justice  of  the  United  States  in  demanding  of 
the  state  of  California,  or  of  the  city  of  San  Francisco, 
that  we  make  room  beside  our  children  for  odoriferous 
negroes  and  Japanese  on  the  bench  which  we  alone  are 
taxed  to  support.  If  Congress  through  cowardice  or  other 
cause  would  feign  educate  foreigners,  or  the  spawn  of 
alien  races  in  our  midst,  let  Congress  pay  for  it. 

We  criticize  France  for  importing  Chinese  to  work  in 
French  munition  plants,  where  they  can  study  the  latest 
arts  of  war  and  acquire  proficiency  in  the  manufacture 
and  use  of  machinery  most  destructive  of  human  life,  thus 
enabling  them  in  time  to  overturn  western  civilization. 
But  are  we  not  doing  infinitely  worse  in  permitting  Japa- 
enese  to  flood  our  free  institutions  of  learning  where  they 
are  taught  how  best  to  destroy  us.  As  one  writing  in  a 


302  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

journal  of  the  day,  "The  American  who  applauds  this 
education  of  asiatics  and  savages  in  the  art  of  destroying 
the  civilization  of  the  white  man  is  a  fool  for  lack  of  ordi 
nary  sense  and  foresight." 

And  all  the  while  that  money  is  being  squandered  in 
superfluous  education,  illiteracy  is  increasing  among  the 
ignorant  poor  who  are  here  for  factory  work,  Greeks,  Poles 
and  Slavs,  with  whom  we  have  no  gentleman's  agreement, 
and  whose  super-sensitiveness  does  not  impel  them  to  impu 
dent  interferences  in  matters  which  should  not  concern 
them. 

For  war  munitions  with  which  to  raid  our  towns  and 
fight  our  soldiers  on  the  border  we  make  the  Mexicans  pay, 
or  promise  to  pay,  but  for  the  knowledge  of  science  and 
art  which  aids  progress  and  strengthens  civilization,  for 
a  knowledge  of  these  implements  and  agencies  to  be  used 
in  our  future  destruction  by  the  heathen  hordes  of  Asia 
we  rise  up  and  outdo  ourselves  in  the  effort  to  give  free 
instruction. 

Nevertheless  the  destiny  of  the  ultimate  west  demands 
its  fulfillment.  Great  as  have  been  the  industrial  achieve 
ments  of  the  eastern  and  mid-continent  states,'  they  are 
small  indeed  as  compared  with  the  economic  expansion 
of  the  future,  of  which,  owing  to  her  geographical  posi 
tion  and  the  vast  natural  wealth  of  the  shores  of  the  Pacific 
within  easy  reach,  California  will  secure  a  large  share. 
And  in  this  connection  it  is  impossible  to  forecast  the  im 
portance  of  the  great  work  which  will  be  accomplished 
by  the  University  of  California  in  bringing  forward  to 
a  higher  state  of  culture  the  region  around  the  Pacific. 
Untrammeled  by  paralyzing  precedent  or  by  restrictive 
traditions,  under  the  liberal  and  intelligent  management 
such  as  it  at  present  enjoys,  none  of  the  old  institutions 
of  the  east  or  of  Europe  could  supply  its  place  or  do  its 
work.  Probably  there  is  no  institution  in  the  world  when 
opportunity  and  enlightened  effort  meet  for  high  achieve- 


THE    ECONOMICS    OF    EDUCATION         303 

ment  as  in  the  University  of  California  under  its  present 
management.  I  believe  that  in  progressive  education  this 
institution  is  leading  the  world.  There  may  be  some  things 
that  can  be  better  studied  at  the  east,  or  in  Europe,  or 
even  amidst  the  buried  glories  of  old  Asia,  but  the  soul 
of  humanity  is  in  the  west.  It  is  here  that  the  final  destiny 
of  mankind  is  to  develop,  with  the  broad  waters  of  the 
Pacific  emblematical  of  its  scope.  Around  this  greatest  of 
oceans  is  a  special  sphere  of  influence,  requiring  a  master 
mind  even  to  foreshadow  its  potentialities,  and  to  President 
Wheeler  western  civilization  will  ever  owe  a  debt  of  grati 
tude  for  laying  broad  the  foundation  for  present  and 
future  development. 

The  first  work  of  a  great  university  is  to  clear  the 
minds  of  youth  from  the  falsities  and  superstitions  of  the 
past,  and  not  rivet  still  tighter  the  chains  of  ignorance 
by  holding  up  for  their  imitation  the  half -intelligible  max 
ims  of  the  half-civilized  sages  of  Greece  and  Rome  and 
Egypt  and  Palestine.  To  pick  up  the  fragments  left  over 
by  worshipers  of  Buddha,  or  the  alleged  sayings  and  doings 
of  fishermen  who  followed  Christ,  and  demand  for  them 
recognition  as  of  specially  divine  origin  and  influence  is 
promulgating  ancient  ignorance  and  not  modern  truth. 

It  is  not  easy  for  one  to  conceive  the  mighty  power  for 
good  in  the  near  and  distant  future  that  this  institution 
will  exercise  in  the  unfolding  of  a  new  civilization  around 
the  shores  of  the  Pacific.  Of  the  University  extension 
service  the  California  Outlook  says:  "One  of  the  most 
useful  and  interesting  educational  enterprises  in  Califor 
nia  is  the  extension  division  of  the  state  university  at 
Berkeley.  Probably  no  other  organization  designed  to 
enlarge  the  service  of  the  great  university  has  .had  so 
striking  a  brief  career.  Organized  a  little  over  three  years 
ago  on  a  broad  and  comprehensive  basis,  this  division  now 
occupies  an  important  position  not  only  in  the  university 
but  in  the  entire  state,  and  has  won  wide  recognition 
through  its  many-sided  social  and  educational  activities. 


304  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

A  most  useful  and  significant  phase  of  this  university  ex 
tension  service  is  that  of  the  bureau  of  correspondence 
instruction,  one  of  the  seven  bureaus  composing  the  exten 
sion  division.  The  extent  to  which  this  bureau  is  meeting 
a  real  need  and  the  value  of  correspondence  instruction 
are  illustrated  by  the  rapid  growth  in  the  number  of  stu 
dents,  the  variety  of  courses  offered,  and  the  keen  public 
interest  as  shown  by  the  widespread  demand  for  instruc 
tion.  These  have  literally  increased  by  leaps  and  bounds. 
Courses  are  given  by  mail  in  a  wide  range  of  subjects. 
In  the  purely  literary  branches,  English  composition  and 
literature,  the  drama,  journalism,  French,  German,  Span 
ish,  Italian,  and  Latin  are  taught  by  this  method.  Along 
lines  of  technology,  instruction  is  given  in  mechanics,  elec 
tricity,  hydraulics,  many  branches  of  pure  and  applied 
mathematics,  freehand,  instrumental,  mechanical,  geomet 
rical,  and  projective  drawing,  and  architecture.  In  busi 
ness  branches  courses  are  given  in  accounting,  advertis 
ing,  business  management,  commercial  law,  commercial 
arithemtic,  stenography,  and  typewriting.  In  the  social 
sciences,  there  are  courses  in  history,  political  science,  and 
government,  municipal  administration,  international  law, 
social  economics,  and  the  history  of  philosophy.  A  num 
ber  of  courses  in  education  are  offered,  including  the  his 
tory  and  science  of  education,  educational  and  social  psy 
chology,  school  organization  and  administration,  and  play 
ground  supervision.  In  scientific  fields,  there  are  courses 
in  astronomy,  biology,  and  child  welfare;  and  in  those  of 
music  and  art,  harmony  counterpoint  and  the  history  of 
music  and  of  art  are  taught  by  the  correspondence  method. 
The  bureau  now  has  students  distributed  from  the  Atlan 
tic  coast  of  this  country  westward  to  India,  and  from 
icy  Nome  to  the  equator.  Naturally,  the  great  majority 
of  the  students  live  in  California,  but  there  are  eager, 
ambitious  men  and  women  pursuing  these  courses  in  nearly 
half  the  states  of  the  union,  to  say  nothing  of  those  in 
the  canal  zone,  in  South  America,  in  British  Columbia, 


THE    ECONOMICS    OF    EDUCATION         305 

China,  the  Philippines,  and  India.  The  giving  of  corre 
spondence  instruction  is  but  one  of  seven  great  enterprises 
being  promoted  and  directed  by  California's  university 
extension  division.  It  carries  on  the  other  six  enterprises 
through  six  bureaus.  The  bureau  of  class  instruction  is 
having  a  year  of  splendid  success,  with  extra-campus 
classes  in  Oakland,  San  Francisco,  San  Jose  and  Stockton ; 
the  bureau  of  visual  instruction  is  serving  a  most  useful 
cause,  the  use  of  stereopticon  slides,  moving-picture  films, 
and  industrial  exhibits  for  educational  purposes;  the  bu 
reau  of  lectures  is  supplying  communities  throughout  the 
state  with  a  repertoire  of  profitable  lectures;  the  bureau 
of  public  discussion  is  conducting  a  most  profitable  series 
of  debates  and  discussions;  while  the  bureaus  of  infor 
mation  and  municipal  reference  are  serving  the  state  in 
ways  implied  in  their  names." 

What  is  to  be  the  future  of  the  University  of  Cali 
fornia?  It  is  only  yesterday  that  the  powerful  weapon 
of  ability  to  read  and  write  was  left  to  the  favored  few, 
and  the  world  would  have  jeered  at  the  ridiculously  im 
possible  idea  that  the  time  would  ever  come  when  all  men 
should  be  taught  these  rudiments  of  education.  Illiter 
acy  has  not  yet  been  abolished  in  America,  but  the  day 
is  close  at  hand  when  the  enfranchisement  of  a  liberal  edu 
cation  will  be  deemed  the  inalienable  heritage  to  every 
American. 

And  in  addition  to  a  liberal  education  equally  inalien 
able  will  be  a  term  of  training  for  expert  skill  in  some 
particular  field.  There  is  no  work  to  be  done  in  the  world 
which  cannot  be  better  done  by  a  trained  intelligence. 
There  is  no  normal  human  being  who  will  not  be  better, 
more  useful,  and  happier  for  the  possession  of  a  liberal 
education  along  the  lines  of  future  effort. 

When  the  day  shines  when  all  Americans  claim  such  an 
education  as  that  for  all  their  children,  there  will  be  a  mul 
titude  of  educational  institutions  up  and  down  the  coast 


306  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

serving  the  needs  of  the  many  million  who  will  then  inhabit 
the  shores  of  the  Pacific.  What  in  that  day  will  be  the 
nature  and  functions  of  the  University  of  California? 
Prophesy  is  no  easy  task,  but  the  seed  is  of  augury  for 
the  harvest. 

Here  are  some  of  the  past  achievements  of  the  univer 
sity.  Beginning  in  1860  as  the  college  of  California,  a  little 
college  of  the  old  New  England  type,  devoted  to  the  hu 
manities,  eight  years  later  the  University  of  California  was 
chartered  by  the  state  and  entrusted  with  the  develop 
ment  of  engineering  and  agricultural  education,  to  advance 
which  the  system  of  land  grant  colleges  had  been  estab 
lished  by  congressional  action  throughout  the  whole  coun 
try.  By  1896  the  students  at  Berkeley  numbered  1,500; 
the  total  enrollment  in  all  departments  of  the  university 
was  2,047 ;  twenty  years  later,  for  the  year  ending  June  30, 
1916,  there  were  5,185  undergraduates  enrolled  in  the  col 
leges  at  Berkeley;  in  all  departments  of  the  university, 
exclusive  of  the  summer  session,  the  registration  was  7,951. 
Including  the  summer  session,  but  exclusive  of  duplicates, 
the  enrollment  was  12,521.  This  included  none  of  the  uni 
versity  extension  students,  of  whom  there  were  three 
thousand  in  regular  attendance  on  classes;  none  of  the 
correspondence  students  in  academic  subjects,  of  whom 
there  were  more  than  two  thousand;  none  of  the  students 
in  agriculture,  of  whom  there  were  more  than  ten  thou 
sand;  nor  did  it  include  the  sixty-five  thousand  who  at 
tended  university  extension  lectures  during  the  year,  nor 
the  eighty  thousand  who  were  advised  and  instructed  dur 
ing  the  year  by  the  county  farm  advisors,  nor  the  hundred 
thousand  who  came  during  the  year  to  the  clinics  of  the 
university  hospital  in  San  Francisco,  nor  the  three  thou 
sand  who  came  to  the  dental  clinics,  nor  the  scores  of 
thousands  who  listened  to  lectures  and  addresses  given  in 
various  parts  of  the  state  by  members  of  the  faculty.  Dur 
ing  that  year  at  least  one  out  of  five  of  the  adults  living 


THE    ECONOMICS    OP    EDUCATION         307 

in  California  received  direct  instruction  through  some  one 
of  the  various  agencies  of  this  institution. 

That  one  of  the  primary  functions  of  a  university  sup 
ported  by  the  state  is  the  advancement  of  human  knowl 
edge  has  long  been  recognized  in  California.  Many  years 
ago  the  Lick  observatory  was  made  a  research  department 
of  the  university  of  California.  Its  work  has  been  liber 
ally  supported  from  the  general  funds  of  the  university. 
The  scientific  discoveries  made  there  over  a  long  course 
of  years  has  won  it  a  world-wide  reputation  as  one  of 
the  most  productive  centres  of  astronomical  research  in 
any  land.  With  constantly  increasing  generosity  funds 
have  been  provided  by  the  state  and  by  the  United  States 
for  agricultural  research  by  the  university.  Discoveries 
of  fundamental  importance  have  been  made  in  regard  to 
the  maintenance  of  the  fertility  of  the  soil  under  irriga 
tion,  in  regard  to  the  most  profitable  methods  of  the  appli 
cation  of  irrigation  waters,  in  regard  to  drainage,  and  in- 
regard  to  the  reclamation  of  alkali  lands,  and  in  regard 
to  ways  of  combating  the  insect  pests  and  the  plant  dis 
eases  of  California.  Agricultural  researches  have  been 
carried  on  in  all  parts  of  the  state.  In  1912  was  estab 
lished  a  graduate  school  of  tropical  agriculture  and  citrus 
experiment  station  at  Riverside,  where  a  staff  of  investi 
gators  devote  their  whole  time  to  researches  for  the  im 
provement  of  the  fruits  and  crops  particularly  appropriate 
for  the  semi-tropical  conditions  of  southern  California  and 
the  interior  valleys  of  the  state.  In  1906  seven  hundred 
and  eighty  acres  of  land  were  acquired  at  Davis,  in  Yolo 
county,  as  a  university  farm,  and  there,  besides  activities 
in  agricultural  education,  the  university  has  been  engaged 
in  researches  as  to  field  crops,  the  breeding  and  feeding 
of  animals,  irrigation  practise,  viticulture,  and  the  decidu 
ous  fruits.  In  1903,  through  the  generosity  of  Mrs  Phoebe 
Hearst,  work  was  begun  upon  the  assembling  of  a  museum 
of  anthropology  and  archaeology.  Her  expenditures  on 
this  undertaking  exceeded  a  million  dollars.  Since  this 


308  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

work  was  undertaken  many  countries  from  which  portions 
of  these  collections  came  have  adopted  regulations  strin 
gently  limiting  or  forbidding  exportations  of  antiquities, 
so  that  to-day  it  would  be  impossible  to  duplicate  the  uni 
versity  of  California  collections  or  equal  them  for  an  ex 
penditure  of  less  than  four  or  five  million  dollars.  As  a 
part  of  this  work,  was  inaugurated,  an  ethnological  survey 
of  California,  and  this  work  still  in  progress,  has  resulted 
in  great  additions  to  knowledge  concerning  the  languages 
and  ways  of  life  of  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of  Califor 
nia  and  the  western  United  States.  To  the  university  has 
been  estrusted  an  endowment  of  approximately  a  million 
dollars  for  the  maintenance  of  the  George  Williams  Hooper 
foundation  for  medical  research.  This  research  depart 
ment,  which  forms  a  part  of  the  medical  school,  has  a  staff 
of  investigators  whose  whole  time  is  devoted  to  fundamental 
researches  as  to  the  problems  of  disease.  Throughout  the 
scientific  investigation  is  a  primary  activity.  Besides  the 
constant  flow  of  scientific  papers  to  technical  journals  in 
many  fields,  the  university  itself  expends  approximately 
$16,000  per  annum  in  scientific  publications.  It  is  when 
scientific  research  is  associated  with  the  training  of  young 
investigators  that  it  is  most  productive,  and  the  research 
activities  result  not  only  in  positive  contributions  to  knowl 
edge,  but  also  in  the  training  up  of  a  great  body  of  young 
investigators  to  follow  the  footsteps  of  the  men  from  whom 
they  have  received  the  contagious  spirit  of  scientific  dis 
covery. 

For  the  year  ending  June  30,  1896,  the  total  income 
of  the  university  was  $331,965.19,  for  the  year  ending 
June  30,  1916,  the  income  available  for  immediate  use  was 
$3,394,902.49.  In  1896  the  university  was  without  a  single 
building  fitted  for  any  permanency  of  use.  By  1916  a 
great  beginning  had  been  made  with  the  execution  of  the 
Phoebe  Hearst  architectural  plan  of  the  university  through 
the  erection  of  the  campus  of  agriculture  hall  at  a  cost 
of  $212,883.85;  Boalt  hall  of  law,  $159,287.61;  California 


THE    ECONOMICS    OF    EDUCATION         309 

hall,  $271,711.33;  the  Sather  campanile,  $203,959.51;  the 
Greek  theatre,  $45,000 ;  the  Hearst  memorial  mining  build 
ing,  $644,000;  the  president's  house,  $113,868.53;  the 
Sather  gateway,  $39,413.51;  and  work  was  in  progress  on 
the  completion  of  the  university  library,  at  a  cost  of  $1,- 
271,700;  the  first  unit  of  the  chemistry  building,  costing 
$220,000;  Hilgard  hall,  the  second  unit  of  the  buildings 
destined  for  agriculture,  costing  $375,000;  and  the  Ben 
jamin  Ide  Wheeler  hall,  costing  $727,000.  All  four  of 
these  last  mentioned  undertakings  have  been  provided  for 
by  an  issue  of  $1,800,000  in  state  bonds,  voted  by  the  people 
of  California,  through  approval  of  an  intiative  measure 
proposed  by  the  alumni. 

By  1916  a  tendency  was  growing  more  and  more  pro 
nounced  for  the  proportion  to  increase  of  undergraduates 
seeking  admission  to  advanced  standing,  in  the  fall  of  1916 
one  out  of  five  of  all  undergraduates  applying  for  admis 
sion  being  entitled  to  advanced  standing.  The  graduate 
division  had  risen  to  a  total  enrollment  of  1,014,  the  per 
centage  of  growth  in  graduate  students  for  the  previous 
ten  years  being  189  per  cent,  as  compared  with  111  per 
cent  for  undergraduates  during  the  same  period. 

If  the  tendencies  which  half  a  century  have  emphasized 
prevail,  then  the  University  of  California  will  more  and 
more  become  an  institution  for  the  highest  possible  pro 
fessional  training  for  leaders  in  the  pursuits  of  mankind. 
Mere  professional  training  will  not  be  the  end  in  view, 
but  the  training  of  men  fitted  to  be  innovators,  pioneers, 
creators. 

The  community  will  look  to  the  university  in  ever-in 
creasing  measure  to  solve  its  problems.  The  opportunities 
of  scientific  research  are  illimitable.  The  task  of  finding 
new  truth  and  obtaining  greater  mastery  over  processes 
of  nature  is  endless. 

All  the  infectious  diseases  will  soon  have  been  con 
quered  and  made  only  a  hideous  memory  of  the  past,  but 
there  will  still  remain  an  endless  amount  to  be  done  to 


310  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

improve  the  mere  comfort  and  smooth  working  of  the 
human  mechanism.  With  the  development  of  synthetic 
chemistry,  agriculture  may  cease  to  be  practised  as  a  source 
of  the  necessities  of  life,  but  it  will  eternally  be  beloved 
as  a  source  of  satisfactions,  joys,  and  beauties,  and  cre 
ative  mastery  of  the  processes  of  plant  life  will  be  forever 
enhanced  and  developed.  Chemistry  offers  boundless  pos 
sibilities  for  development,  that  man  may  have  at  his  service 
inexhaustible  stores  of  energy  to  do  the  world's  work  and 
endless  diversity  of  new  products  for  his  service  and  well- 
being. 

The  last  century  has  seen  such  a  development  of  man's 
mastery  over  nature  as  had  not  been  equalled  by  all  the 
previous  history  of  the  world.  But  the  social  problems 
of  universal  opportunity,  universal  freedom,  universal  in 
telligence,  universal  well-being  remain  to  be  solved.  No 
matter  how  the  world  may  advance  along  these  paths, 
there  will  always  be  new  lands  to  conquer  and  need  of  ex 
plorers  and  city  builders  in  these  new  realms  of  human  rela 
tionships.  Nor  will  the  university  of  the  future  be  for  the 
people  of  its  own  community  alone.  More  and  more  the 
concord  and  cooperation  of  the  whole  world  will  be  insured 
by  intermigrations  of  students,  so  that  one  people  may  learn 
from  another,  and  the  universal  kinship  of  mankind  be 
better  realized.  Here  on  the  western  rim  of  the  continent 
this  great  institution,  and  the  increasing  inspiration  arising 
therefrom  will  serve  as  a  powerful  magnet  to  draw  from 
all  the  lands  which  border  the  Pacific  ardent  spirits  who 
will  return  to  their  own  countries  enriched  by  what  they 
have  gathered  of  western  learning.  And  this  touch  with 
other  peoples  and  other  lands  will  be  a  constant  inspiration 
as  well  to  those  who  dwell  and  work  within  the  gateways 
of  the  University  of  California. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   MYSTERIOUS   HISTORY  OP   THE   SPIRIT   CREATION 

A  LTHOUGH  the  world  at  present  is  given  to  making 
f\  ghosts  rather  than  to  analyzing  them,  yet  the  des 
tiny  of  man  throughout  the  eternity  that  follows  his  brief 
sojourn  on  this  earth  is  a  question  of  never  failing  interest 
and  controversy. 

Wherefore  in  our  elucidation  of  these  latter  days  we 
cannot  pass  by  altogether  the  question  of  creeds,  or  doc 
trines  concerning  nature  and  the  supernatural,  a  subject 
which  has  always  commanded  the  serious  attention  of  the 
race,  and  one  in  which  opinions  and  beliefs  are  all  the  more 
strongly  emphasized  because  of  our  lack  of  knowledge 
concerning  either  our  own  spiritual  nature  or  of  any  super 
natural  beings.  So  strong  have  been  these  convictions  of 
ignorance,  that  throughout  the  ages  multitudes  have  been 
found  as  ready  to  sacrifice  their  own  life  in  their  defense 
as  to  take  the  life  of  others  in  enforcing  them. 

Evolution  feeds  on  the  blood  and  bones  of  its  victims. 
Evermore  new  forms  of  life  find  place  and  expression  by 
the  disappearance  of  less  complex  forms.  And  although 
in  dealing  with  spirits  we  have  little  to  do  with  blood  and 
bones,  yet  the  evolution  of  the  supernatural  from  the 
abstract  to  the  concrete  follows  the  general  course  attend 
ing  all  development. 

In  seeking  an  initial  point  for  the  investigation  of  occult 
mysteries  it  matters  little  whether  we  go  back  to  the  fan 
tastic  imagery  of  the  wild  man  of  the  woods,  or  consider 
the  many  mythologies  of  his  more  immediate  successors, 
or  turn  to  the  opening  lines  of  the  sacred  books,  extant  or 

311 


312  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

obsolete,  of  the  several  great  religions  of  the  world,  or  adopt 
the  theories  of  modern  scientists,  we  arrive  at  the  same 
conclusion,  namely,  that  beyond  a  few  patent  realities  the 
question  is  one  largely  of  opinion  and  speculation. 

We  may  know,  for  example,  how  originates  the  idea  of 
deities  and  demons;  we  may  follow  the  transformation  of 
ghosts  and  hobgoblins  into  gods  and  devils;  we  may  see 
with  a  yet  further  enlarged  imagination  .myriads  of  spirits 
floating  in  space  change  into  divinities  lesser  in  number 
but  higher  in  degree;  we  may  even  traverse  the  long  dis 
tance  from  nature-worship  to  polytheism  and  monotheism, 
and  by  thus  feeling  our  way  backward  and  forward  with 
proper  circumspection,  from  the  proximate  and  seemingly 
permanent  into  the  dark  inscrutable  past,  we  may  find 
here  and  there  a  salient  point  upon  which  to  hang  a  syllo 
gism. 

Obviously  there  were  present  upon  the  scene  no  super- 
natures  until  nature  had  been  long  enough  at  work  to  make 
their  advent  possible;  and  even  after  that,  time  and  dis 
tance  must  be  measured  by  eons  from  the  imps  and  appa 
ritions  of  primeval  places  to  the  gods  on  Mount  Olympus. 

.  Entering  upon  the  first  stage  of  our  inquiry  we  find 
that  we  are  permitted  to  avoid  speculation  almost  alto 
gether,  holding  only  to  substantial  facts.  Following  this 
course  let  us  see  where  we  will  be  brought  up. 

At  the  very  outset  of  our  investigation  we  find  our 
selves  up  against  two  opposing  entities,  the  tendency  to 
good  and  the  tendency  to  evil.  One  signifies  all  that  is 
bright  and  beautiful  on  this  earth,  love  honor  and  right 
eousness  in  a  garden  of  health  and  happiness;  the  other 
signifies  all  that  is  vile,  destructive,  and  degrading,  as  hate, 
wrong-doing,  and  dishonor  in  a  hell  of  discord. 

However  may  have  been  the  original  plan  of  creative 
force,  if  indeed  there  were  such  a  plan,  we  see  in  the 
consummation  this  fundamental  principle  of  antagonism. 
This,  the  dualism  of  Zoroaster,  so  universally  displayed  in 


MYSTERY    OF    SPIRIT    CREATION  313 

nature,  enters  the  supernatural  in  the  form  of  opposing 
personalities,  a  deity  or  a  demon  for  every  unaccountable 
phenomenon  in  nature  and  every  passion  in  man.  This 
principle  of  duality,  of  antagonistic  entities,  two  distinct 
impulses  in  gods  and  men,  the  real  and  the  ideal,  underlies 
all  emotions.  It  is  seen  everywhere,  in  man,  in  nature, 
and  in  super-nature;  and  as  the  economy  of  nature  and 
the  supernatural  .is  established  these  antagonisms  are  es 
sential  to  the  progress  and  improvement  of  the  human 
race.  It  is  not  claimed,  however,  that  the  economy  of  the 
universe  is  perfect,  or  that  the  race  could  not  have  been 
improved  or  made  perfect  in  some  happier  way. 

As  the  tendency  to  concentrate  power  in  one  supreme 
being  increased,  the  administration  of  the  twofoldness  in 
nature,  as  good  and  evil,  joy  and  sorrow,  was  given  to  one 
personage,  and  the  system  of  dualism  resulted  in  the  union 
of  at  first  two  in  one,  to  result  finally  in  the  trinity,  the 
result  being  endless  confusion  and  contentions. 

The  members  of  small  societies  alone  are  knit  together 
by  consanguinity  and  the  gregarious  instinct;  hate  rules 
the  rest,  every  tribe  ready  to  fight  every  other  tribe,  every 
strange  thing  an  enemy.  And  this  principle  seems  per 
manent.  Civilizations  may  come  and  go,  religions  may  rail 
against  it,  prophets  of  fraternity  may  foretell  a  millen 
nium  of  brotherhood  and  good-will  which  never  comes, 
apostles  of  peace  may  preach  against  it,  there  it  remains, 
growing  more  refined  and  effective  with  the  refinement  of 
succeeding  agesr  laughing  to  scorn  all  attempts  to  eradi 
cate  it. 

It  is  well  known  that  as  brutishness  emerges  into  man, 
or  half-man,  the  over-ruling  influence  in  and  around  him 
is  fear.  In  his  blind  ignorance  he  imagines  nature  arrayed 
against  him,  now  to  soothe  and  now  to  terrify.  In  all 
strange  sights  or  sounds  he  feels  the  presence  of  an  enemy. 
All  the  forces  of  nature,  at  various  times  and  in  various 
ways,  conspire  to  do  him  injury. 

The  first  factor  in  bringing  to  man  a  knowledge  of 


314  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

himself  is  fear,  a  sentiment  found  equally  in  the  half-man 
and  the  wholly  brute.  Even  half  tamed  animals  fear  per 
sonal  injury  and  flee  from  the  appearance  of  danger.  Man 
who  has  learned  from  experience  that  danger  does  not 
always  lurk  in  appearances,  still  fears  where  he  does  not 
know,  and  so  invents  places  of  refuge  and  of  torment. 

Still  the  lines  of  demarcation  between  the  human  and 
the  brute  creations  are  sharply  drawn,  and  predestination 
made  permanent  by  nature,  so  that  even  now  while  the 
man  knows  that  he  is  a  man,  the  horse  does  not  know  that 
he  is  a  horse. 

In  the  settlement  of  our  middle  west  an  epidemic  of 
religion  engendered  by  fear  was  of  frequent  occurrence, 
fear  from  the  terrors  of  Calvinism  hurled  upon  the  set 
tlers  by  itinerant  preachers,  raethodists,  baptists,  and 
Scotch  presbyterians,  as  well  as  the  fear  naturally  arising 
from  their  exposed  condition  in  the  forest,  fear  of  savage 
men  and  savage  nature,  these  with  many  varied  religious 
orgies,  if  indeed  the  convulsions  of  the  Kentucky  jerks,  or 
the  bounding  and  falling  and  shouting  as  at  a  negro  camp- 
meeting,  or  the  tambourine  beating  and  singing  of  the 
street  Salvationists  can  be  called  religion. 

Hate  and  its  twin-brother  fear.  Throughout  the  realm 
of  animated  nature  we  notice  as  most  conspicuous  the 
quality  of  fear,  which  is  closely  allied  to  love  and  hate, 
love  of  life,  love  of  kind,  and  hatred  for  whatever  destroys 
or  interferes  with  love  and  life.  It  is  present  in  plants, 
which  show  affection  and  aversion,  as  well  as  in  animals. 
Seek  the  cause  and  we  cannot  find  it;  we  can  only  refer 
to  the  universal  elements  of  good  and  evil  seen  everywhere 
and  in  everything. 

A  hateful  thing  it  is  this  spirit  of  evil,  from  seeds 
implanted  at  the  beginning,  the  fruit  to  remain  apparently 
to  the  end,  whence  and  for  what  purpose  let  those  tell 
who  know.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  this  evil  spirit  en 
gendered  fear,  that  fear  filled  primeval  forest  with  demons 
of  destruction,  and  that  with  fear  came  the  genesis  of 


MYSTERY   OF    SPIRIT    CREATION          315 

the  gods,  which  seems  to  show  that  without  fear  there 
would  have  been  no  contentious  gods  and  no  contentious 
religions,  which  would  have  saved  the  world  much  misery. 

Wild  beasts  of  the  forest  are  startled  by  unfamiliar 
phenomena,  manifestations  of  which  are  varied.  Thus 
grass-eaters  flee  before  strange  sights  or  sounds,  while  the 
feeders  on  flesh  bristle  up  in  opposition.  The  lion  roams 
his  native  wilds  roaring  and  is  unafraid;  the  hind  flees 
at  his  approach  and  hides  herself.  Even  when  tamed, 
while  the  horse  prepares  to  run  the  dog  prepares  for  battle. 

Go  a  little  farther  and  give  these  beasts  conscious 
ness,  let  the  nascent  soul  be  felt,  dependence  then  attends 
fear;  let  fall  upon  them  a  sense  of  forces  present  outside 
of  themselves  and  beyond  their  control,  powers  dominant 
in  nature,  and  straightway  forms  are  given  to  these  forces,, 
and  these  forms  thus  engendered  in  the  half-beast  half- 
human  brain  are  the  embryo  spirits  and  subsequent  deities 
which  a  large  part  of  the  human  race  worship  as  gods  at 
this  day. 

While  yet  man  was  but  half  human,  and  consciousness 
was  slowly  permeating  his  brutish  brain,  with  self-recog 
nition  fantastic  imagery  of  deities  and  demons  crept  in 
'behind  appearances.  At  some  strange  sight  or  sound  he 
became  frightened  and  ran  from  it.  Thus  it  was  that  as 
the  physical  element  of  his  nature  came  forward  images 
arose  in  his  dull  intellect  to  bring  upon  him  fresh  appre 
hension  and  unrest.  Enfolding  the  seeds  of  superstition, 
with  the  dawn  of  consciousness  the  soul  appears,  with 
embryo  intellect,  harbinger  of  future  discrimination  and 
responsibility,  and  a  new  being  is  born  into  the  world. 
Prior  to  this  period  the  purely  animal  might  harbor  fear, 
but  as  to-day  without  reason.  Mind  with  reasoning  fac 
ulties  then  appeared  and  slowly  assumed  the  functions  of 
the  hitherto  purely  animal  instincts. 

To  the  fantastic  imagery  thus  attending  development 
forms  and  features  of  some  sort  must  be  given.  By  imps, 


316  IN   THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

elves,  and  devils,  or  other  beings  requiring  a  display  of 
hate  or  ferocity,  the  animal  world  may  be  utilized,  but  for 
divinities  of  a  higher  order,  as  angels  and  ministering 
spirits,  the  human  form  is  more  fitting.  To  some  of  these 
are  given  even  the  wings  of  birds. 

Thus  man  fashions  his  gods  from  his  own  image,  en 
dows  them  with  his  own  nature,  gives  them  duality  or 
plurality,  and  prescribes  their  attributes  and  occupation. 
From  his  own  construction  and  condition,  and  from  the 
elemental  operations  of  nature  these  deities  are  improvised 
by  man,  first  in  the  form  of  disembodied  spirits,  unseeable 
powers  of  good  and  evil,  of  limited  spheres,  some  of  them 
seeking  and  obtaining  incarnation,  later  to  become  united, 
three  in  one,  two  in  one,  a  trinity,  a  duality,  all  tending 
in  their  coalescence  to  a  mixed  monotheism  of  antagonistic 
elements  and  contradictory  forces  impossible  to  fathom  or 
to  reconcile.  For  as  man  has  no  model  other  than  himself 
from  which  to  construct  his  gods,  the  gods  of  men,  made 
after  the  image  of  man,  cannot  develop  beyond  the  devel 
opment  of  man  himself;  and  as  the  greater  part  of  the 
gods  now  waiting  on  the  affairs  of  men  were  brought  into 
existence  some  centuries  ago,  when  human  nature  was 
more  brutish  if  possible  than  at  the  present  time,  they  are 
but  sorry  affairs. 

Meanwhile  the  brute  creation  goes  on  in  the  old  un 
changing  way  guided  by  instincts  given  it  in  the  beginning 
seeking  pleasure,  which  means  in  the  main  enough  to  eat, 
and  struggling  to  escape  pain;  yet  amidst  all  its  varied 
phases  of  suffering  or  content  never  knowing  joy  or  sor 
row,  happiness  or  misery,  never  knowing  that  it  exists 
at  all. 

In  the  gorilla  we  see  an  animal  which  is  already  partly 
man,  just  as  later  in  the  same  creature  is  seen  a  man  that 
is  partly  animal.  Descending  from  his  tree  a  beast  he 
put  on  humanity  and  walks  forth  upon  the  ground.  He 
can  show  you  a  head  with  ears,  eyes,  nose,  and  mouth  like 


MYSTERY    OF    SPIRIT    CREATION          317 

a  man's;  arms  and  legs,  with  hands  feet  and  fingers  and 
toes  like  those  of  a  man,  all  ill-finished  and  crude  like  his 
crude  ill-finished  brain.  This  phenomenon  of  the  human 
gorilla  and  the  gorilla  human  we  can  see  and  understand. 
It  is  no  imaginary  being,  no  hypothesis  wrought  out  of  the 
fantasies  of  a  fertile  brain. 

And  from  this  point,  as  intelligence  increases  so  in 
creases  the  effort  to  account  for  the  unaccountable,  which 
though  less  bloody  is  as  contentious  now  as  at  any  time 
since  the  conflict  began  which  brought  to  the  surface  a 
thousand  cults,  some  of  which  still  live,  though  most  of 
them  have  long  since  departed. 

Thus  comes  to  the  front  man  primeval,  he  for  whom 
were  nature  and  super-nature.  Emerging  half -human  from 
his  place  among  the  beasts,  whose  nature  in  part  he  is  des 
tined  to  carry  with  him  to  the  end,  this  sense  of  self-exist 
ence  creeps  in,  wherewithal  he  finds  himself  of  a  new 
category  in  creation. 

As  he  unfolds  the  brute  condition,  and  his  obscure 
intellect  becomes  filled  with  grotesque  imagery  of  beings 
beyond  appearances,  fear  finds  expression  in  appeals  to 
unseen  agencies,  deities  of  good  and  evil,  and  which  is  the 
inception  of  the  religious  sentiment,  and  the  origin  of 
worship.  These  propitiatory  exercises,  prostrations  and 
prayers  with  praise  and  sacrifice,  and  many  like  perform 
ances  are  kept  up  to  the  end,  or  until  the  cause  of  the 
fright  is  explained  or  removed. 

And  as  there  are  in  the  universe  many  objects  whose 
nature  is  unknown  and  whose  purpose  is  unexplained, 
innumerable  agencies,  gods  devils  and  spirits  are  created 
and  worshiped  unseen,  gods  of  animals  and  plants,  of  birds 
and  fishes,  gods  of  the  celestial  bodies  and  spirits  reflecting 
the  displays  of  nature  and  the  emotions  of  the  human  soul. 

Before  the  great  primal  cause  could  be  elevated  in  the 
minds  of  humanity  to  become  creator  and  ruler  of  the 
universe,  man  must  have  some  knowledge  of  the  universe, 
and  as  that  knowledge  increased  so  increased  the  power 


318  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

and  glory  of  God.  If  our  knowledge  of  the  universe  even 
now  is  so  limited;  if  the  magnitude  of  the  world  and  sys 
tems  of  worlds  is  so  faintly  indicated  by  revealed  science, 
if  all  is  so  dark  to  us,  so  far  beyond  our  comprehension 
as  to  make  it  impossible  to  exalt  God  accordingly,  how 
should  the  celestial  sphere  be  regarded  in  the  ages  of 
primitive  blindness? 

Fetishism  ascribes  a  magic  power  to  certain  stones,  ani 
mals,  and  plants,  later  drifting  into  idolatry  when  the 
object  of  adoration  is  clothed  with  consciousness.  Moses, 
while  engaged  upon  the  protocol  of  his  ten  commandments, 
could  consider  nothing  better  for  his  people,  so  lately  out 
of  Egypt,  than  a  calf  to  worship.  Idolatry,  the  worship 
as  divinities  of  beasts,  birds,  and  reptiles,  of  trees  and 
stones,  of  the  celestial  bodies,  and  of  air,  fire,  and  water 
was  common  with  all  primitive  people,  not  excepting  the 
Jews  under  Moses,  who  deemed  the  matter  of  so  much 
importance  as  to  make  it  the  subject  of  the  first  two  of  his 
ten  rules  of  conduct. 

Not  infrequently  the  worship  of  God  begins  with  the 
worship  of  ancestors,  who  are  supposed  to  watch  over  their 
descendants,  taking  an  interest  in  them  for  their  good, 
with  power  'to  protect. 

At  best  it  is  but  a  quasi-theism,  this  worship  of  ances 
tors,  though  perhaps  a  step  in  advance  of  the  worship  of 
nature.  The  profusion  of  deities  made  by  the  Chaldeans 
and  Egyptians  were  largely  from  birds  and  animals, 
pieces  of  which  were  patched  together  in  grotesque  forms. 
The  Babylonians  and  Assyrians  had  for  their  chief  deities 
Bel  and  Asshur,  with  sun,  moon,  and  air  gods,  a  legionary 
of  other  great  gods  subordinate,  and  a  thousand  or  so 
spirits  of  earth  and  heaven. 

Egyptians  are  accredited  with  one  god  at  the  start,  or 
perhaps  two,  which  became  a  multitude  in  time.  Where 
priests  are  plentiful  it  is  easy  enough  to  manufacture  gods. 
The  Phenicians  gave  Baal  a  consort,  Astarte,  and  a  head 


MYSTERY    OF    SPIRIT    CREATION          319 

devil,  Moloch.  Then  they  peopled  the  mountains,  glens, 
and  groves  with  innumerable  deities,  upon  whose  altars 
they  kept  the  fires  continually  burning.  In  Media  priests 
early  assumed  the  ascendency,  as  Zoroaster  and  the  magi. 
These  ancient  civilizations,  with  their  manifold  deities 
and  demons,  have  all  disappeared  from  the  face  of  the 
earth,  as  all  present  civilizations  and  deities  will  in  due 
time  disappear,  other  cults  and  cultures  taking  their  place. 
For  so  it  has  been  for  five  thousand  years,  and  we  have 
no  reason  to  expect  any  material  change  in  the  trend  of 
human  affairs  for  the  next  five  thousand  years. 

* 

Innumerable  religions  thus  fell  upon  the  world,  for 
tuitous  in  the  main  according  to  the  bent  of  mind  or  the 
influence  of  nature  upon  individuals  and  groups,  modi 
fied  as  well  by  the  haphazard  throwing  together  of  ancient 
myths  and  traditions. 

More  and  more  was  felt  the  necessity  of  some  sort  of 
safe-guard  from  the  grim  surroundings. 

To  every  created  thing  is  given  some  individual  means 
for  self-protection  from  the  evil,  else  existence  would  be 
of  short  duration.  Now  man,  or  half-man,  until  the  com 
ing  of  mind  and  consciousness  is  the  most  helpless  of  all 
animals,  and  hence  the  most  easily  startled  and  made 
afraid.  As  his  intelligence  increases  he  tries  to  fathom 
the  surrounding  mysteries  and  ascertain  nature  and  the 
underlying  causes  of  their  existence.  He  places  appari 
tions  of  varied  import  in  or  behind  each  object,  and  so 
come  to  him  ghosts,  hobgoblins,  gods,  and  devils. 

Not  all  primitive  people  believe  in  God,  but  all  believe 
in  ghosts.  As  a  rule  gods  and  ghosts  are  indigenous  with 
the  nations  entertaining  them.  But  as  mankind  every 
where  are  much  alike,  so  are  their  hopes  and  fears,  their 
fancies  and  their  traditional  faiths.  All  have  their  good 
and  evil  spirits,  their  imps,  apparitions,  and  their  other 
self. 


320  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

Father  of  all  the  gods  therefore  is  fear;  fear  and  de 
pendence,  fear  of  injury  from  the  unseen  forces  which  dom 
inate  environment,  and  fear  of  lack  of  support  or  of  pro 
tection  from  the  evil  influences  to  which  the  good  man 
finds  himself  subjected. 

Besides  their  many  devils,  who  heard  and  answered 
prayer,  there  were  for  the  Chinese,  Confucius  and  Laotse, 
not  gods  but  better  than  gods,  while  the  somewhat  dis 
reputable  occupants  of  Olympus  held  the  Greeks  in  awe 
and  dominated  to  some  extent  the  Romans. 

Whether  we  consider  the  pantheism  of  the  Hindus,  or 
the  atheism  which  recognizes  no  intelligent  agency,  or 
the  anthropomorphism  of  the  orthodox  religionist  of  the 
present  day,  the  phenomena  of  the  universe  are  as  unin 
telligible  as  ever,  and  to  attempt  an  explanation  of  the 
unknowable  and  establish  fundamental  truth  by  affirma 
tion  or  denial  of  belief  is  irrational  and  unprofitable.  You 
cannot  prove  facts  from  impressions.  What  my  opinion 
may  be  does  not  make  one  hair  white  or  black. 

With  the  Hindus  came  monotheism  and  the  trinity, 
one  supreme  deity  manifesting  itself  under  three  forms. 
Prince  Gantama  invented  Buddhism,  the  oldest  religion 
and  the  one  now  having  the  most  followers.  From  these 
two  the  Hebrews  and  Christians  derived  many  of  their 
tenets. 

Before  the  gods  were  men,  and  before  laws  was  the 
state.  Wild  beasts  have  no  gods,  nor  have  wild  men  laws. 
As  he  emerges  from  a  savage  state  he  makes  his  gods  and 
his  laws  as  his  fancy  dictates,  the  good  and  the  evil  always 
contending. 

From  the  intercourse  and  influence  of  individuals  upon 
each  other  came  society  and  the  family,  and  with  these 
morality.  But  the  completed  man  is  anything  but  a  per 
fect  being.  He  is  yet  only  at  the  starting  point  of  a  long 
journey.., 


CHAPTER  XV 

SPIRITUAL    AND    RATIONAL    DEVELOPMENT 

THUS  we  see  in  the  weird  conceptions  of  the  half-man 
of  primeval  wastes  the  origin  of  what  we  of  the 
present  day  call  religion,  a  belief  joining  the  spiritual 
nature  of  man  to  something  supernatural,  or  it  may  be 
any  system  of  faith  and  worship.  We  see  that  at  certain 
stages  of  his  development  man  achieves  this  essential  part 
of  his  new  nature,  achieves  religion  whether  he  will  or 
not,  and  at  a  certain  stage,  when  it  fails  to  fill  the  measure 
of  his  necessities  he  drops  it  whether  he  will  or  not,  or 
rather  it  drops  him.  That  is,  he  is  caught  up  and  held 
in  its  grip  for  a  time  and  then  released. 

Yet  not  wholly  released,  for  there  are  but  few  of  any 
name  or  nation  who  at  this  day  are  not  influenced  in  some 
degree  by  fear  and  dependence,  fear  from  the  whirling 
forces  coming  forth  from  the  unknown,  and  dependence 
upon  some  beneficent  power  for  protection  from  the  evil 
everywhere  manifest.  There  is  no  atheist,  no  agnostic,  so 
utterly  given  over  to  trust  in  the  unknowable  as  to  be 
wholly  indifferent  to  what  is  or  is  to  be.  For  it  is  just 
as  wonderful  and  strange,  an  unknown  unrevealed  intelli 
gent  force  behind  appearances,  or  blind  matter,  self -ex 
istent  and  eternal,  going  its  own  way. 

Wonderful  as  have  been  the  disclosures  of  science  hith 
erto,  more  wonders  are  still  to  come.  At  the  Mount  Wil 
son  observatory  in  southern  California,  the  world's  great 
est  telescope  with  a  gigantic  100  inch  reflector  is  in  course 
of  construction,  which  will  bring  within  the  scope  of  our 
vision,  it  is  said,  100,000,000  new  suns,  each  sun  the  centre 

11  321 


322  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

of  a  system  a  million  times  greater  than  our  own  little 
whirligig  of  planets.  The  immensity  of  space  thus  re 
vealed,  and  to  be  revealed,  is  totally  beyond  our  compre 
hension,  whether  we  talk  in  millions  or  billions  or  tril 
lions, — millions  of  systems  beyond  millions,  and  when  the 
uttermost  limit  is  reached,  a  hundred  more  millions  of 
systems  beyond  that. 

We  are  but  a  little  speck  in  the  middle  of  the  milky 
way,  astronomers  tell  us,  referred  to  sometimes  as  on  the 
outskirts,  of  creation,  although  an  eternity  of  space  can 
have  neither  centre  nor  circumference,  every  spot  being 
centre  and  circumference. 

What  must  have  been  to  the  ancient  aboriginal,  to  the 
dim  conceptions  of  his  clouded  mind,  the  celestial  vault 
but  a  pleasing  picture  to  be  filled  up  as  fancy  dictated. 
Nor  let  us  fancy  that  because  man  has  created  for  him 
self  so  many  deities  that  the  end  is  reached,  that  he  has 
not  many  more  to  beget  before  the  universe  with  its  ever- 
receding  limits  is  properly  provided.  Man  claims  for  him 
self  the  highest  place  in  nature.  This  is  as  it  may  be. 
With  his  limited  vision  he  can  establish  nothing.  Forth 
from  his  dim  intelligence,  forth  from  his  coarse  environ 
ment,  from  his  discomforts  and  sufferings  come  longings 
for  something  better,  his  imaginings  being  still  stimulated 
by  his  wants. 

As  some  degree  of  homage,  therefore,  with  supplications 
for  protection  is  indigenous  in  every  people ;  as  worship  of 
the  unknown  is  found  everywhere  it  would  seem  that  reli 
gion  of  some  sort  is  essential  to  man 's  nature  and  condition. 
The  beasts  of  the  field  can  dwell  together  in  comparative 
peace  and  harmony,  but  when  self-consciousness  or  soul  en 
ters  the  brute,  the  man  thus  evolved  becomes  more  unruly 
than  the  brute,  and  can  be  controlled  or  made  companion 
able  only  through  fear. 

We  may  say  then  that  as  man  evolves  from  brutism, 
religion,  offspring  of  igornance,  fear,  and  dependence,  be- 


SPIRITUAL  -  RATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT    323 

comes  an  inalienable  part  of  his  nature,  and  so  remains 
until  the  mind  is  emancipated  from  its  thraldom  by  thought, 
reason,  and  intellectual  enlightenment. 

Among  the  elemental  forces  of  nature  some  were 
friendly;  the  sun  giver  of  life  and  comfort;  the  gentle 
wind,  the  refreshing  rain.  Others  were  adverse,  threaten 
ing,  terrible.  Follow  the  man,  the  half -man  from  his  sylvan 
cradle  out  into  the  open,  where  under  a  brighter  sky  he 
finds  fresh  fields  for  his  imaginings;  follow  him  all  along 
through  his  millenniums  of  progress  and  note  the  deities 
and  devils  he  picks  up  and  drops  on  the  way. 

From  his  own  appetites  and  desires  he  formulates  the 
appetites  and  desires  of  his  deities.  The  spirit  in  the  thun 
der  and  the  frost,  the  sunshine  and  the  rain,  the  lightning 
and  the  wind  all  have  their  will  and  their  desires.  And  to 
some  extent  this  philosophy  of  savagism  remains  with  us  to 
this  day.  We  clothe  our  God  with  hatred,  revenge,  injus 
tice,  all  of  our  imperfections,  and  then  pray  him  to  avert 
his  wrath  from  us,  all  the  time  insisting  that  he  is  only 
goodness  mercy  and  peace. 

Our  gods  are  our  other  self,  whether  wraith,  fantom, 
or  other  spectre,  whether  deity  or  demon.  We  fear  our 
God,  and  are  too  considerate  to  charge  him  as  the  author 
of  evil,  even  while  making  him  the  author  of  all. 

It  is  not  safe  to  assert  of  anything  that  it  is  impossible, 
but  it  is  not  at  all  probable  that  there  will  ever  appear  on 
this  earth  a  being  superior  to  man,  whose  destiny  is  to  de 
velop  rather  than  to  disappear. 

A  leader  of  some  sort,  heavenly  or  earthly,  sufficiently 
strong  to  hold  together  his  people  is  found  necessary,  and  if 
such  a  one  cannot  be  found  among  contemporaries,  the  an 
nals  of  tradition  must  be  searched  and  some  ancient  hero 
selected  and  idealized  for  the  purpose. 

Of  late  knowledge  has  increased  so  fast  that  no  formu 
lated  religion  can  keep  up  with  it.  Looking  back  eons  upon 
eons  when  man  was  half  human  and  wholly  brute,  we  find 


324  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

a  dim  consciousness  just  creeping  in  which  is  to  separate 
him  forever  from  the  animal  creation. 

A  wild  religion  for  the  wild  man  and  no  laws  at  all.  He 
hears  his  god  in  the  thunder,  he  feels  his  flashing  anger  in 
the  lightning,  his  awful  presence  in  the  earthquake;  then 
other  gods  appear,  the  sun  shines,  the  balmy  air  brings  joy, 
the  wicked  ones  retire. 

Knowing  so  little  of  nature  and  of  man  it  is  not  possible 
for  man  to  assign  himself  his  true  relative  position.  Hence 
his  arrogance.  As  there  is  palpably  present  no  intelligence 
to  gainsay  him,  he  assumes  superiority  to  the  animal  crea 
tion,  to  the  vegetable  creation ;  he  gazes  upward  at  the  stars 
and  wonders  if  they  are  inhabited,  and  if  so  how.  Do  they 
harbor  a  humanity  something  like  his  own,  undergoing  a 
like  process  of  evolution,  with  self-consciousness  and  so 
wonderfully  keen  and  penetrating  intellects?  Under  the 
constant  revelation  of  the  existence  of  yet  greater  worlds 
and  systems  of  worlds  relegating  himself  and  his  little 
planet  to  insignificant  atoms  in  a  limitless  universe  of 
fathomless  entities  his  assurance  gives  way  a  little,  but  he 
is  yet  far  from  realizing  that  as  the  animalcule  in  a  drop 
of  water  is  to  the  noblest  of  earthly  things  so  is  this  earth 
arid  its  inhabitants  to  other  worlds  and  their  potential  oc 
cupants. 

Man  so  far  as  we  may  know,  has  the  start,  and  is  so 
greatly  superior  to  any  other  earthly  creation,  and  is  still 
so  rapidly  advancing  that  it  is  not  to  be  supposed,  as  has 
been  intimated,  that  he  will  ever  be  superseded  by  a  supe 
rior  being  on  this  earth. 

Gods  were  originated  from  natural  causes  and  developed 
as  the  mind  of  man  developed.  Qualities  were  bestowed  on 
them  according  to  their  several  needs.  In  the  brutish  brain 
of  the  primitive  man  the  begotten  gods  are  brutish,  delight 
ing  in  abuse  of  power,  delighting  in  cruelty,  revenge,  or 
any  rank  injustice. 

The  Japanese  address  their  deities  as  they  would  sen 
tient  beings  present  in  their  proper  person.  To  their  ma- 


SPIRITUAL  -  RATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT    325 

lignant  devils  the  Chinese  write  a  warning  for  the  protec 
tion  of  the  departed,  and  scatter  the  slips  of  paper  abroad 
on  their  way  to  the  cemetery.  The  wicked  gods  they  curse, 
and  try  to  drive  away  with  maledictions. 

Overwhelmed  by  illimitable  nothingness,  in  which  float 
only  spectres  of  ignorance  and  superstition,  with  no  knowl 
edge  of  any  whence  or  whither,  what  should  we  expect  for 
poor  humanity  but  endless  fear  and  dependence. 

Whether  or  not  man  can  ever  live  without  religion,  live 
with  no  club  of  fear  or  dependence  hanging  over  him  re 
mains  to  be  seen.  In  any  event  the  old-time  club  of  fear 
is  no  longer  feared  by  persons  of  thought  and  intelligence. 

Having  made  his  gods,  or  having  adopted  some  of  those 
already  made ;  having  written  or  compiled  his  sacred  book, 
or  having  accepted  one  already  compiled  from  the  myths 
and  maxims  of  past  ages,  there  he  rests,  content  to  venture 
his  eternal  welfare  on  its  precepts  and  promises,  accepting 
them,  however  contradictory,  impossible,  or  absurd  they 
may  be,  and  defending  the  same  throughout  the  whole 
course  of  his  life. 

To  solve  the  mystery  thousands  of  the  deepest  thinkers 
dive  into  the  sea  of  religious  emotions  only  to  take  refuge 
at  last  in  a  sort  of  anthropomorphic  theism  or  something 
worse. 

Modern  spiritualists  have  so  infected  their  practice  with 
the  trickeries  of  their  trade  as  to  leave  them  but  little  re 
spect  among  the  respectable.  The  better  men  among  them, 
those  who  write  books  upon  the  subject  and  discuss  psychi 
cal  questions  before  intelligent  hearers  seem  all  the  while 
ashamed  of  their  connection  with  those  who  hold  to  spirit 
rapping  and  like  manifestations. 

A  Harvard  spiritualist  promised  when  he  died  to  return 
and  report,  but  like  the  silence  of  Christ  he  has  not  been 
heard  from.  Not  even  to  a  Harvard  professor  could  per 
mission  be  obtained  for  an  opportunity  to  correct  his  false 
impressions. 


326  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

Every  new  pretender  has  first  to  convert  himself  to 
his  own  religion  before  he  can  convert  others.  And  the 
making  of  spirits  seems  little  likely  to  stop,  if  for  no  better 
purpose  than  that  spiritualists  may  have  something  to  call 
up  by  rapping  for  them. 

Orthodox  Christianity  asserts  dogmatically  that  God  is 
not,  cannot  be  the  author  of  evil.  It  does  not  say  why, 
being  omnipotent,  he  is  not  or  cannot  be  or  do  anything 
he  chooses  to  do  or  to  be,  nor  who  the  author  of  evil  is 
if  the  author  of  all  things  is  not.  Christian  science,  so 
called  because  there  is  nothing  Christian  or  scientific  about 
it,  goes  still  further,  and  says  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  evil. 

How  gullible  is  man !  How  ready  to  become  infatuated 
with  any  prattling  fool  or  philosopher,  his  words  and  ways, 
with  any  man  or  woman  possessing  sufficient  magnetism 
or  sympathetic  personal  influence,  sufficient  mind  and  pur 
pose  to  attract  the  simple,  how  ready  to  accept  as  true 
whatever  such  an  one  may  choose  to  assert !  In  other  words 
how  easy  it  is  for  a  born  spiritual  leader  to  formulate  a 
doctrine,  create  a  deity,  establish  a  religion  and  win  con 
verts. 

And  yet  many  of  the  successful  religions  were  fortu 
itous  in  their  foundation.  Joseph  Smith  accidentally  ran 
across  a  manuscript  in  a  barrel  of  rubbish  written  by  a 
presbyterian  clergyman,  the  reverend  Spaulding,  which 
Joseph  made  his  Book  of  Mormon,  and  with  the  Hebrew- 
Christian  Bible  the  sacred  book  of  his  religion. 

During  an  illness  in  1866  Mary  Eddy  read  in  her  Bible 
how  Christ  cured  the  man  with  the  palsy.  Sin  and  sick 
ness  she  thereupon  discovered  were  one  and  the  same  thing, 
for  this  cult  was  a  discovery,  not  an  invention,  the  su 
preme  discovery  of  the  age  her  disciples  call  it.  As  she 
was  free  from  sin  she  concluded  it  a  mistake  that  she  was 
sick;  so  she  rose  up  self-cured  a  well  woman.  She  talked, 
converted,  and  wrote  a  book,  Science  and  Health,  the  sacred 


SPIRITUAL  -  RATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT     327 

book  of  her  people,  and  one  which  brings  to  the  bureau 
drawer  much  money. 

Christ's  word  and  work,  with  all  the  attendant  marvels 
and  miracles,  were  an  exact  science,  she  declared,  which 
was  her  discovery.  Sin  was  a  myth,  sickness"  was  a  myth, 
everything  was  a  myth  except  the  myth  itself,  which  was 
substantial  science. 

The  rise  of  industrial  civilization  by  exposing  causes 
and  to  some  extent  dispelling  fears  obliterated  many  ghosts 
thus  far  created.  And  while  evil  still  has  us  in  its  grip, 
hardening  our  natures  and  sharpening  our  intellects,  the 
blessings  of  life  with  some  degree  of  happiness  are  still 
with  us. 

"Do  you  believe  in  God?"  asks  Margaret  of  Faust; 
and  the  subtle  student  of  mysteries  who  trafficked  in  souls 
with  Mephistopheles,  and  was  no  priest,  could  give  the 
simple  girl  no  adequate  answer. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

AB    OVO 

S  slowly  it  comes  to  us  that  man  makes  his  deities 
without  knowing  it,  after  awhile  to  imagine  that  the 
deities  made  us.  As  we  have  seen,  without  fear  there 
would  have  been  no  gods,  the  gods  themselves  later  becom 
ing  man 's  greatest  fear ;  and  without  gods,  mankind  would 
have  been  saved  a  world  of  misery;  for  still  there  is  strife 
and  confusion  among  the  children  of  men. 

Ab  Ovo!  Which  was  first,  the  egg  or  the  chicken? 
Which  was  first,  the  ever-existing  creator,  or  the  ever-ex 
isting  created?  Which  was  first,  time  or  eternity?  Which 
was  first  among  cosmic  entities,  attraction  or  repulsion? 
Which  was  first  in  religion,  the  spiritual  nature  of  the 
half-man,  or  the  supernatural  engendered  by  fear  and 
dependence?  Which  of  all  we  see  around  us  is  the  cause 
and  which  the  effect;  which  the  origin,  and  which  the  con 
summation?  Whether  the  author  of  all  things  is  or  is  not 
the  author  of  evil;  if  not,  how  comes  evil;  who  makes  it 
or  permits  it,  and  why  ?  A  flat  denial  that  the  omnipotent 
creator  and  sustainer  of  all  cannot  be  the  creator  and  sus- 
tainer  of  evil,  is  not  satisfying  to  the  sane  mind.  Make 
a  new  myth  and  tell  us  how  came  the  serpent  in  Eden. 
Whence  came  he;  who  or  what  made  him;  or  like  matter 
has  he  always  been  ?  Is  the  devil  eternal  ?  Why  was  Luci 
fer  turned  out  of  heaven,  turned  loose  upon  defenseless 
humanity;  could  not  God  manage  him  there? 

We  do  not  understand,  saith  the  preacher.  True,  0 
preacher !  You  do  not  understand,  then  why  pretend  ? 
Why  preach? 

328 


AB    OVO  329 

In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth. 
The  beginning  of  what?  If  of  this  universe,  then  what 
and  where  was  God  before  the  beginning;  was  he  filling 
space  with  his  presence,  or  sitting  alone  in  darkness,  eter 
nized.  If  God  was  present,  and  besides  him  only  the 
nothing  out  of  which  he  made  the  world,  then  how  about 
the  origin  of  the  creator.  To  say  that  God  always  was, 
and  that  matter  is  eternal,  is  easy  enough  in  words,  but 
such  expressions  find  no  interpretation  in  our  brain.  Our 
minds  still  revert  to  the  original  riddle,  was  the  creator 
or  the  created  first,  and  if  the  former,  then  who  or  what 
created  the  creator.  Beat  our  brains  never  so  wildly. 
nothing  further  comes  of  it. 

As  the  great  nations  of  the  earth  developed  in  science 
art  and  industry,  religions  grew  and  assumed  forms  with 
the  rest,  each  nation  as  a  rule  having  its  own  cult,  draw 
ing  from  all  available  myths,  with  its  own  fantasies  added, 
and  in  the  formulation  of  which  after  all  there  was  much 
that  was  fortuitous.  Thus  loosely  thrown  together  by  par 
tisans  bred  of  ignorance  and  superstition,  these  traditions 
and  marvelous  stories  of  signs  and  wonders,  with  miracles 
and  codes  of  conduct,  were  gathered  into  a  national  book, 
deemed  sacred.  Nations  might  die,  and  their  sacred  books 
be  destroyed,  and  yet  the  larger  part  of  their  contents 
remain  in  the  memory  of  devotees. 

Now  as  regards  religious  belief  in  these  latter  days, 
are  they  not  in  something  of  a  muddle  ?  So  many  of  them 
and  so  varied.  Perhaps  no  more  so,  however,  than  they 
always  have  been  and  always  will  be.  Draw  as  deep  as 
we  will  from  the  wells  of  ignorance  and  superstition  and 
there  will  come  up  only  weird  and  unlovely  forms. 

Any  one  of  the  proper  construction,  physically  and 
psychologically,  like  Mrs  Eddy,  Mrs  Tingley,  Billy  Sun 
day,  the  Boston  Emmanuelists,  or  Charles  Stone  may  start 
a  new  religion  or  revise  an  old  one,  and  find  a  multitude 
of  followers.  There  is  nothing  so  absurd  that  people  can 
not  be  found  to  believe  it. 


330  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

In  his  own  image  and  after  his  own  nature  man  creates 
his  creator.  In  primitive  times  they  were  a  crude  affair, 
these  deities,  hobgoblins,  and  monsters,  but  as  civilization 
evolves,  the  evolution  of  the  gods  follows,  and  so  to  con 
tinue  until  the  sublime  sentiments  of  Christianity  shall 
appear  to  future  ages  no  better  than  the  mouthings  of 
the  Greek  gods  seem  to  us  of  the  present  day. 

Every  nation  has  its  sacred  book,  always  of  supernat 
ural  origin,  before  which  time  myths  and  legends  were 
passed  along  from  one  generation  to  another  by  word  of 
mouth. 

Rendered  desperate  by  the  long  millenniums  of  stifling 
ignorance  and  isolation,  emphasized  by  the  intermingling 
of  the  happy  and  horrible  voices  of  nature,  the  half -brute 
man  lets  fly  his  half -brute  imagination  and  legions  of  in 
visible  agencies  appear  before  him.  All  the  works  of  nature 
are  in  his  mind  carried  on  by  personal  agents. 

In  the  land  of  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates,  long  before 
the  God  of  Moses  appeared  at  Mount  Sinai  the  great  god 
Merodach  held  court  in  Assyria,  attended  by  the  wor 
shipful  monsters  and  sacred  animals  of  Chaldea,  whose 
followers  had  their  own  wonderful  story  of  the  creation 
to  tell,  followed  by  a  flood  myth,  a  fire  myth,  and  an  im 
maculate  conception,  with  legions  of  angels  and  devils. 

Herodotus  claimed  for  the  Greek  religion  an  Egyptian 
origin,  while  others  regarded  it  as  autochthonic.  At  this 
point  in  the  evolution  of  the  race  poetical  polytheism  and 
a  plastic  worship  of  nature  with  its  visible  powers  were 
yet  to  come.  The  legends  of  gods  and  heroes  comprise 
the  early  history  of  Greece,  which  is  full  of  the  marvels 
ignorance  delights  in.  England  and  Erin  revelled  in  a 
Druidic  period  remembered  now  only  in  Celtic  legends 
and  folk-lore,  conspicuous  in  which  were  the  elemental 
heavenly  bodies  and  the  earthly  waste  of  waters. 

Arius  of  Egypt  in  the  fourth  century  denied  the  divinity 
of  Christ,  the  council  of  Nice  declared  the  contrary.  After 
disputing  over  the  matter  for  three  centuries  the  Arians 


AB    OVO  331 

retired  from  the  controversy,  which  was  deemed  proof  suf 
ficient  to  establish  the  fact.  All  the  same  the  Mohamme 
dans  have  their  Messiah,  Mahdi. 

Neither  the  oral  traditions  nor  the  written  parts  of 
what  constitutes  the  framework  of  the  Talmud  and  the 
Bible  were  gathered  into  books  deemed  sacred  until  long 
after  the  alleged  events  which  they  describe  had  trans 
pired,  some  four  or  five  hundred  years,  a  lapse  sufficiently 
long  to  make  their  validity  questionable.  The  Koran  and 
the  book  of  Mormon,  on  the  other  hand,  came  by  way  of 
direct  revelation  from  heaven  and  were  sacred  from  the 
beginning.  The  Veda,  or  Knowledge  of  Knowledges,  is  as 
it  was  always,  complete  and  perfect.  The  Books  of  the 
Kings,  as  the  writings  of  Confucius  were  called,  were  a 
mixture  of  ethics,  philosophy,  and  political  philanthropy 
with  no  pretensions  to  a  divine  origin  other  than  that  all 
the  work  of  a  divine  being  must  be  divine,  yet  these  books 
impressed  their  influence  upon  a  larger  part  of  the  human 
race,  and  for  a  longer  period,  than  any  one  of  the  others. 

Christianity  claims  to  be  a  religion  of  love,  but  is  it 
not  more  a  religion  of  hate,  following  the  performances 
of  the  Christian  nations  in  Europe,  and  the  promises  of 
wholesale  torment  hereafter? 

Accepting  the  Almighty,  his  nature  and  attributes  at 
their  own  estimate,  he  could  stop  the  war  if  he  desired; 
and  yet  those  who  pray  seem  to  imagine  that  omniscient 
and  unchangeable  as  they  say  he  is,  that  he  is  going  to 
change  his  ways  and  go  contrary  to  his  own  judgment 
at  their  request?  Obviously  the  kaiser's  deity  has  aban 
doned  his  vicegerent  to  his  own  evil  ways,  and  deems  it 
as  well  to  let  the  allies  fight  the  war  to  a  finish. 

As  all  religions  originate  from  the  same  cause,  similar 
methods  attend  their  development.  The  later  traditions 
are  made  up  largely  from  the  earlier  ones,  and  the  later 
sacred  books  from  the  earlier  sacred  books,  so  that  we 
see  the  same  strain  relative  to  right  and  wrong  conduct 


332  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

running  through  them  all.  Thus  the  great  religions  have 
all  been  formulated  from  legends  lianded  down  from  re 
mote  ages,  and  accepted  as  truth  by  succeeding  genera 
tions.  But  when  men  began  to  question,  What  is  the 
human  soul?  What  is  spiritism,  inspiration,  and  immor 
tality?  Why  have  we  not  revelations  and  miracles  now, 
if  they  were  established  and  practised  by  a  wise  and 
unchangeable  God?  When  men  began  thus  to  think  and 
question,  innumerable  doubts  and  disputes  arose,  attended 
by  persecutions  and  bloody  wars,  leaving  the  questions 
still  unanswered,  as  indeed  they  so  remain  to  this  day. 

The  Buddhist  drew  largely  from  the  Brahmans,  who 
held  the  indigenous  cult  of  Hindustan;  all  the  other  sects 
drew  from  the  Buddhists.  Hence  it  is  that  similar  views 
are  held  throughout  in  all  religions  as  to  human  duty 
and  human  destiny. 

There  are  the  very  old  Vedas  of  the  Hindus,  the  four 
holy  books  of  India,  in  which  Brahma  appears  as  chief 
of  a  trinity,  Brahma  the  creator,  Vishnu  the  preserver, 
and  Siva  the  destroyer,  though  Brahma  was  never  a  temple 
god  nor  an  object  of  worship. 

Following  a  period  of  philosophical  pantheism,  early 
Egyptians  held  to  one  god  without  beginning  or  end. 
Later  came  idolatry  and  polytheism,  and  a  multitude  of 
gods,  Asiris  and  Isis  being  chief.  Besides  abstract  prin 
ciples  they  worshiped  animals  and  vegetables. 

The  Chinese  sage  Confucius,  coming  551  years  before 
Christ,  preached  a  morality  more  practicable  than  that  of 
the  Nazarene,  and  higher  and  holier  than  any  religion, 
meanwhile  living  the  life  he  commended.  Though  not 
appearing  as  a  prophet  or  divine  agent,  prodigies  and 
marvels  preceded  his  birth,  according  to  the  tales  told  by 
his  disciples,  similar  to  those  attending  the  birth  of  Christ, 
The  boy  Confucius,  like  the  boy  Christ,  amazed  the  wise 
men  by  his  knowledge  and  precepts. 

Though  not  called  a  religion,  Confucianism  differs  es- 


AB    OVO 

seutially  from  other  cults  only  in  the  absence  of  a  per 
sonal  God,  and  without  any  pretensions  to  special  agency 
delegated  by  divine  power  to  the  leader.  As  a  system  of 
morals  and  philosophy  it  stands  superior  to  any  other, 
coming  as  it  does  within  practical  human  compass,  and 
in  not  asserting  that  which  is  not  known  as  absolutely  true. 

Mencius,  or  Mengtse,  one  of  the  chief  followers  of 
Confucius,  taught  virtue  and  justice,  and  like  his  master 
left  several  sacred  books. 

Losing  force  in  Hindustan,  its  birthplace,  Buddhism 
now  divides  China  with  Confucius  and  Laotse,  and  Japan 
with  Sintuism,  worshipers  of  the  great  sun  goddess,  among 
whom  the  Mikado  is  chief,  and  in  whom,  as  direct  descend 
ant  of  the  sun  goddess,  all  the  attributes  of  the  deity  are 
centred.  Minor  deities  are  numerous,  as  every  public 
benefactor  is  canonized  at  his  death.  Then,  we  may  see 
in  every  Japanese  dishwasher  a  potential  god,  and  if  born 
in  the  United  States,  an  American  citizen  as  well. 

With  the  worship  of  the  visible  and  invisible  forces 
of  nature,  the  poetic  polytheism  of  the  ancient  Greek  was 
not  the  worship  of  dead  symbols,  but  of  living  realities 
with  all  the  faults  and  passions  of  humanity. 

The  Bible  of  the  Jews  and  Christians,  traditional  and 
historical,  derived  its  beginning  from  the  mythologies  of 
Chaldea  and  Egypt,  which  were  followed  by  the  exhorta 
tions  of  Moses  with  signs,  wonders,  and  many  miracles, 
with  the  warnings  of  the  prophets  and  the  coming  of  the 
Christ. 

As  the  Jews  derived  many  of  their  tenets  from  the 
Persians,  so  other  religions  absorbed  many  of  their  doc 
trines  and  dogmas  from  the  Jews.  India  gave  to  the  great 
religions  half  of  their  superstitions,  for  which  favor  the 
great  religions  later  sent  missionaries  to  India  to  dispos 
sess  them  of  the  other  half. 

Moses,  or  others  before  and  after  him,  gathered  into 
the  Talmud  such  of  the  preexisting  oral  stores  and  myths 
as  suited  the  occasion,  and  so  established  the  Jewish  civil 


334  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

and  canonical  code.  They  were  promised  a  Messiah,  but 
rejecting  the  Christ  they  are  still  looking  for  him,  and 
will  probably  be  looking  for  him  for  the  next  ten  or  twenty 
thousand  years,  while  the  Christians  will  also  be  awaiting 
the  fulfillment  of  the  promises  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

Moses,  having  his  own  miracles  and  myths  to  make, 
fought  down  those  of  the  Egyptians,  and  set  up  for  the 
Jews  a  special  deity,  the  one  only  living  and  true  God,  into 
whose  mouth  he  placed  his  own  laws,  and  whatever  other 
special  orders  he  wished  conveyed  through  their  deity  to 
the  people. 

Israel  was  God's  chosen  people,  Moses  said,  peculiarly 
favored,  all  the  rest  of  the  world  to  be  sacrificed  if  neces 
sary  to  minister  to  their  profit  and  pleasure,  which  was 
scarcely  consistent  with  the  justice  of  a  righteous  ruler. 
Nor  would  a  beneficent  being  have  wrestled  so  long  with 
a  perverse  people  whom  he  could  have  made  in  an  instant 
as  he  would  have  them  to  be.  As  to  the  alleged  promises 
of  God  to  the  Jews,  it  is  now  6,000  years  since  they  were 
made,  and  this  chosen  people  are  still  without  name  or 
country,  and  held  in  low  esteem  by  all  the  other  nations 
of  the  earth. 

In  drafting  his  ten  commandments,  Moses  made  the 
cardinal  mistake  of  trying  to  fit  a  perfect  deity  to  imper 
fect  work;  of  setting  up  before  the  people  for  their  wor 
ship  a  God  hypothetically  holy  and  just  in  every  respect, 
yet  modeled  upon  the  imperfections  of  the  people,  a  people 
lately  from  slavery,  and  in  development  but  little  advanced 
from  savagism.  The  qualities  of  retaliation  or  revenge, 
love  and  hate  were  not  consistent  with  previous  implied 
perfection. 

It  was  a  mistake  of  both  Jews  and  Christians  in  set 
ting  up  their  supreme  rulership  to  make  the  supernatural 
so  illogical  and  impossible.  It  did  not  matter  so  much 
with  the  Jews,  as  they  were  not  so  far  advanced  in  cul 
ture,  but  Christ  claimed  to  be  the  founder  of  a  new  dis 
pensation.  The  half-savage  Israelites  coming  from  slavery 


AB    OVO  335 

out  of  Egypt  could  not  imagine  a  being  void  of  cruelty, 
hate,  and  revenge,  could  not  comprehend  a  being,  human 
or  divine,  all  tender,  all  merciful,  all  love,  with  all  the 
base  passions  of  human  nature  eliminated. 

He  was  also  injudicious  in  laying  down  a  higher  law 
for  his  still  brutish  proteges,  and  in  throwing  off  polythe 
ism  and  adopting  monotheism  before  they  were  ready  for 
it,  before  indeed  they  were  fairly  clear  of  idolatry.  They 
could  better  have  understood  the  situation  had  there  been 
another  deity  for  them  to  wrestle  with,  a  king  of  evil, 
god  of  that  sinister  influence  introduced  by  the  creator 
in  Eden  in  form  of  the  serpent;  this,  instead  of  placing 
in  one  personality  the  contending  powers  of  good  and  evil. 

The  Jews  even  now  live  and  labor  under  the  impres 
sion  that  they  are  the  special  favorites  of  the  Almighty, 
when  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  are  probably  the  most 
persecuted  and  generally  despised  people  on  earth,  the 
Christians  being  conspicuous  in  the  infliction  of  atrocities. 

Inexperienced  as  he  was  in  nation-making,  there  is 
little  wonder  Moses  should  have  erred  in  qualifying  his 
deity  at  once  upon  too  high  and  too  low  a  plane,  too  far 
above  them  in  goodness,  and  too  far  below  even  their 
low  estate  in  human  attributes. 

These  errors  were  further  promulgated  later  when 
Christ  recognized  only  the  goodness  of  the  Jehovah  of 
Moses,  ignoring  the  rest,  and  to  this  day  a  one-sided  Lord 
God  is  preached  by  a  one-sided  priest,  to  a  one-sided  people, 
the  ministers  of  our  faith  not  daring  to  charge  God  as  the 
author  of  evil,  and  not  able  otherwise  to  account  for  its 
origin  or  continuance,  thus  whipping  the  devil  in  and  out 
of  their  pulpits  with  windy  words  from  generation  to 
generation,  forcing  upon  their  insensate  hearers  lies  and 
absurdities  innumerable. 

More  direct  in  expression  than  many  of  the  so-called 
sacred  writers,  the  author  of  the  allegorical  book  of  Job 
brought  his  Satan  out  into  the  light,  permitting  him  to 
present  himself  in  person  with  the  sons  of  God  before 


336  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

the  Lord,  and  stipulate  with  him  as  to  the  badgering  of 
the  patriarch.  From  the  context  it  appears  that  God  had 
perfect  control  of  the  devil,  who  was  still  permitted  to 
go  to  and  fro  in  the  earth,  and  walk  up  and  down  in  it, 
and  Job  was  selected  for  him  to  practise  on,  because  he 
was  perfect  and  upright,  one  that  feared  God  and  eschewed 
evil,  all  of  which  was  entertainment  for  the  deities  and 
interesting  to  Job's  comforters,  though  rather  hard  on  the 
patriarch  himself. 

About  the  time  of  Christ  and  for  a  few  centuries  there 
after,  many  new  sects  sprang  up,  Mohammedanism  be 
coming  the  most  conspicuous.  Christ  and  Mohammed  both 
claimed  to  be  messengers  of  the  Almighty,  the  one  as 
son  of  God,  or  one  with  God,  or  God  himself,  the  other 
as  prophet  of  God.  Both  claimed  a  mission  of  love  and 
peace,  and  the  career  of  each  alike  culminated  in  hatred, 
wars,  and  dire  injustice  and  distress,  as  witness  throughout 
the  world  this  day. 

Mohammed,  whose  religion  was  a  mixture  of  heathenism, 
Judaism,  and  Christianism,  and  the  followers  of  whose 
teachings  numbered  at  one  time  140  millions,  was  no  more 
consistent  than  Moses  as  the  founder  of  his  faith.  It  is 
not  necessary  for  a  religion-maker  to  be  consistent  in  order 
to  be  successful,  for  never  yet  was  there  a  leader  in  ghosts 
and  miracles  who  was  consistent. 

The  Koran,  the  political  as  well  as  the  religious  code 
of  Islam,  coeval  with  God,  uncreated,  eternal,  was  made 
up  from  the  traditions  of  the  Arabs,  with  the  revelations 
to  Mohammed,  the  teachings  of  Moses,  Christ,  and  the 
Magi,  and  extracts  from  the  Talmud  and  Midrash  added, 
all  written  out  in  rays  of  light  upon  a  tablet,  standing 
by  the  throne  of  God. 

Born  without  signs  or  wonders  570  years  after  Christ, 
Mohammed  received  his  first  revelation,  informing  him  of 
his  mission,  when  forty  years  of  age.  The  doctrines  con 
tained  in  his  Koran  were  derived  largely  from  the  Hebrew 


AB    OVO  337 

Bible.  One  God  but  no  son;  God  had  no  son;  but  Moses 
and  Christ  were  great  prophets.  Like  the  Christ,  he  made 
his  first  proselytes  among  the  poor  and  ignorant,  mostly 
slaves.  He  fought  all  other  religions  as  false,  the  outcome 
of  ignorance  and  fanaticism.  Their  ancient  gods  were 
idols  and  their  worshipers  fools.  Like  the  Christians,  the 
early  Mohammedans  were  persecuted  for  their  religion, 
later  to  persecute  others,  and  many  suffered  martyrdom. 
The  prophet  presented  himself  to  the  Jews  as  their  Mes 
siah  and  was  rejected. 

Islam  charges  Christianism,  and  Christianism  charges 
Islamism,  as  the  cause  of  the  decay  of  the  eastern  nations. 
All  religions  denounce  all  other  religions  except  their  own 
as  false,  and  all  of  them  are  pretty  nearly  right. 

The  boy  Mohammed  displayed  no  signs  of  a  heavenly 
origin,  except  that  he  was  troubled  with  fits  inflicted  by 
the  demons.  At  thirty,  the  husband  of  a  rich  widow,  he 
was  an  imposing  figure,  but  not  until  his  fortieth  year 
did  he  begin  to  have  revelations.  Then  he  announced  him 
self  the  true  Messiah,  and  made  war  for  his  religion. 

The  Book  of  Mormon,  as  we  have  seen,  written  on  metal 
plates  was  found  by  Joseph  Smith  in  a  cave  on  a  hillside 
in  western  New  York,  and  made  by  him  the  holy  book  of 
his  religion.  To  a  narrative  of  the  ten  lost  tribes  of  Israel, 
who  were  the  American  Indians,  were  added  the  tenets 
of  his  faith,  embracing  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  scrip 
tures,  with  the  usual  miracles  and  revelations. 

Among  other  incongruities  we  cannot  but  notice  in  the 
one  only  true  God  of  the  Jews,  as  well  as  of  the  Chris 
tians  Mohammedans  and  Mormons,  the  same  that  Moses 
established,  and  that  was  preached  by  the  Christ  of  whom 
he  was  part  and  partner.  Thus  at  the  service  of  Moham 
med  to  assist  in  making  the  world  better  were  Adam, 
Noah,  Moses,  and  Christ.  All  these  Joseph  Smith  also 
appropriated  save  one,  Joseph  himself  taking  the  place  of 
Islam's  prophet. 


338  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

Every  sacred  book  claims  for  itself  the  direct  influ 
ence  of  the  creator  impressed  on  the  writers.  But  is  not 
the  direct  influence  of  the  creator  impressed  on  all  cre 
ated  things,  not  more  upon  St  John  the  evangelist  than 
upon  every  blade  of  grass  that  grows,  on  every  forest  flower 
that  blooms? 

Every  religionist  will  contend  with  you  that  his  own 
sacred  books  are  inspired,  whereas  all  the  others  are  lies, 
the  work  of  the  devil.  Were  this  true  then  the  devil  must 
be  accredited  with  some  good  work,  for  in  all  the  sacred 
book  is  much  that  is  good,  much  that  is  helpful  to  man 
in  his  journey  through  life. 

But  what  is  this  inspiration?  Primarily  it  means  to 
inhale,  or  in  theological  parlance  the  supernatural  divine 
influence,  as  exerted  upon  sacred  teachers  and  writers 
by  which  divine  authority  is  given  to  their  writings.  The 
sanctifying  influence  of  the  holy  spirit.  Which  is  a  fair 
specimen  of  the  explanation  we  too  often  get  from  pro 
fessors  and  doctors  of  divinity  taught  in  theological  insti 
tutions  how  best  to  misinterpret  scripture. 

What  is  meant  by  the  term  sacred?  Whatever  is  es 
teemed  especially  dear  to  deity  we  are  told.  What  deity? 
Is  not  everything  God  has  touched  sacred,  Cain  the  first 
murderer  upon  whom  God  put  his  mark  equally  with  an 
archangel?  Was  Eve  inspired  and  the  serpent  not?  God 
peopled  heaven,  and  Lucifer  was  there;  did  the  serpent 
crawl  into  heaven  and  become  Lucifer;  were  Lucifer  and 
the  serpent  one  creation  or  two?  Truly  if  we  are  to  be 
lieve  the  interpreter,  for  a  wise  and  holy  omnipotent  cre 
ator  God  had  his  troubles.  Better  to  have  killed  Lucifer 
at  once  than  to  have  hurled  him  headlong  out  of  heaven 
alive,  thereafter  to  afflict  the  children  of  men  forever  for 
wrongs  they  had  never  committed. 

Lot,  vilest  of  all  the  Jewish  patriarchs,  was  he  inspired 
when  he  committed  incest  with  his  daughters,  or  Jacob 
when  he  cheated  Esau  of  his  birthright,  or  Noah  when  he 
cursed  poor  Ham  to  blackness  for  looking  upon  him  when 


AB    OVO  339 

drunk  and  naked  instead  of  taking  blame  to  himself  for 
his  disgraceful  proceedings? 

We  might  ask  further,  and  continue  our  interrogatories 
to  the  end  of  the  chapter  without  gaining  anything  by  it. 
King  David  wrote  the  Psalms  and  defiled  Uriah's  wife, 
was  he  inspired  in  both  instances?  Civilization  frowns  on 
polygamy  and  concubinage.  Solomon  wrote  the  Proverbs, 
built  a  temple  to  the  Lord,  and  kept  in  addition  to  Pha- 
roah's  daughter  700  wives  and  300  concubines;  was  Solo 
mon  with  his  superior  wisdom  inspired  in  his  lewdness 
as  in  his  love  of  God  ?  The  apostle  Peter  denied  his  master 
and  swore  to  a  lie,  afterward,  being  inspired,  bringing 
death  to  Ananias  and  Sapphira  for  a  little  fib  about  their 
property. 

Was  Mary  inspired  before  or  after  the  alleged  immacu 
late  conception?  Which  story  does  not  satisfy  the  honest 
seeker  after  truth,  as  such  claims  do  not  pass  current  at 
the  present  day. 

Moses  was  an  upright  man  of  great  wisdom  and  limit 
less  patience,  but  like  the  myth-makers  of  the  present  day 
he  was  often  in  error  in  the  fashioning  of  his  deity,  as 
we  have  seen.  It  were  better  in  him  to  have  adopted  the 
duality  principle  than  to  have  set  up  a  partisan  filled  with 
the  varied  passions  found  in  humanity. 

For  example,  his  creator,  all-wise  and  all-powerful,  es 
tablished  man,  and  pronounced  his  work  good.  In  laying 
out  Eden  he  imposed  a  restriction  which  all  the  while  he 
knew  his  creatures  would  break,  which  he  knew  before 
hand  that  he  had  so  made  them  that  they  could  not  help 
but  break  it,  then  with  obvious  injustice  inflicting  punish 
ment  for  the  same  upon  successive  worlds  full  of  innocent 
creatures.  Meanwhile  the  serpent  appears,  as  the  embodi 
ment  of  evil  with  no  accounting  for  its  origin  or  purpose. 
All  quite  a  simple  cock  and  bull  story. 

In  due  time  this  perfect  and  unchangeable  creator,  who 
at  first  pronounced  his  work  good,  tires  of  fighting  the 


340  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

devil  that  comes  from  no  one  knows  where,  and  looks 
about  him  for  a  way  out  of  it. 

In  the  various  religions  we  hear  much  of  the  fall  of 
man.  It  is  a  pity,  so  much  needless  distress,  for  there  never 
was  any  such  eventuality.  It  were  impossible,  more  par 
ticularly  if  we  accredit  the  Bible  true.  From  what  did  we 
fall?  "From  the  estate  wherein  we  were  created."  That 
is  not  true.  I  am  this  day  and  forever  as  originally  created. 

•When  it  came  to  the  doings  in  Egypt  something  similar 
to  the  Eden  ethics  was  repeated.  Pharaoh's  heart  was 
hardened,  which  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  let  the 
people  go,  and  so  afforded  sufficient  excuse  for  almighty 
power  to  inflict  unmerited  punishment,  to  the  edification 
of  his  chosen  people.  Which  was  scarcely  fair  to  Pharaoh. 

Then  at  Mount  Sinai  Moses  must  write  in  his  ten  com 
mandments  another  blunder  making  a  just  God  visit  the 
sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children  to  the  third  or  fourth 
generation. 

At  the  river  Jordan,  having  previously  selected  Israel 
for  special  favors,  and  having  cursed  all  the  rest  of  the 
people  he  had  made,  he  set  the  Israelites  on  to  fight  and 
murder  them,  with  many  cruelties,  all  for  doing  what  he 
had  created  them  to  do,  and  what  he  knew  beforehand 
that  they  would  do. 

After  all,  so-called  sacred  things  and  things  inspired 
do  not  always  present  the  best  examples  for  our  edification. 

The  two  horns  of  the  dilemma  seem  to  have  arisen  before 
all  the  myth-makers  alike,  the  oneness  of  a  being  possess 
ing  both  good  and  evil,  love  and  hate,  or  a  duality  of 
the  deity,  in  either  case  ignoring  the  unaccountable  origin 
of  evil.  To  assert,  as  our  priests  and  prophets  so  often 
love  to  do,  that  God  could  not  do  thus  and  so,  could  not 
make  pleasure  without  first  inflicting  unmerited  pain,  could 
not  release  the  world  from  the  evil  he  had  unjustly  placed 
upon  it  without  committing  another  act  of  injustice  in 
the  sacrifice  of  an  innocent  victim,  displays  a  knowledge 
of  divine  economy  wonderful  to  see. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

I  MET  a  Uranian  the  other  day  sauntering  down  from 
the  mountain,  where  he  had  been  to  send  a  message 
home.  He  was  evidently  a  stranger  in  these  parts,  and 
of  such  marked  peculiarities  in  appearance  as  to  be  some 
what  puzzling ;  rather  diminutive,  physically,  though  bright 
and  alert  of  mind ;  a  cheery,  cheerful  fellow  for  a  philoso 
pher,  as  one  friendly  with  all  worlds,  with  a  substratum 
of  calm  and  courage  in  his  nature ;  free  from  excess,  master 
of  himself,  clearly  accustomed  to  an  atmosphere  of  intelli 
gence,  truth,  and  sincerity,  and  always  a  friend  of  the 
right.  He  was  lightly  clad  in  some  nondescript  stuff  thrown 
on  after  a  fashion  which  seemed  rather  to  emphasize  the 
absence  of  fashion,  indicating  originality  and  convenience. 

He  introduced  himself  as  a  citizen  of  the  universal, 
psychologically  inclined,  residence  Uranus,  and  he  was  now 
making  a  tour  of  the  planets,  more  especially  to  look  into 
the  nature  and  operations  of  that  strange  psychical  freak 
called  religion,  which  he  understood  to  be  in  vogue  here, 
as  there  was  nothing  of  the  sort  out  his  way.  His  people 
had  never  felt  the  need  of  gods  and  devils,  he  said,  and 
consequently  had  never  made  any. 

"Since  my  arrival  here,"  he  went  on  to  say,  "I  have 
been  studying  certain  of  your  systems,  notably  the  bio 
logical  and  theological,  the  doctrine  of  duality  and  the 
absence  of  the  absolute. 

1 1 1  am  greatly  interested  in  your  spirit  system,  you  have 
it  all  so  admirably  worked  out,  ut  quocunque  paratus,  as 
to  make  to  appear  real  and  veritable  fact  what  strikes 

341 


342  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

one  with  mind  not  prepared  as  yours  has  been  a  mere 
illusion. 

"I  ask  what  it  is,  this  that  you  term  religion,  and  am 
told  that  it  signifies  faith  and  worship,  devotion  to  rites 
and  cults,  a  belief  binding  the  spiritual  nature  of  man 
to  a  supernatural  being;  that  is  to  say  opinion,  a  belief 
in  something,  an  entity  if  not  an  actuality. 

"I  find  you  greatly  troubled  over  the  unknowable, 
obsessed  with  fear,  lest  some  great  evil  befall  you  here  and 
hereafter.  To  escape  the  evil  you  have  fallen  into  many 
psychological  extravagances  ill  befitting  a  sane  people. 
You  make  for  yourselves  a  thousand  imaginary  deities,  of 
mixed  good  and  evil  import,  and  fall  down  to  praise  and 
pray,  to  placate  and  beg  protection. 

' '  I  find  your  several  systems  all  of  them  to  some  extent, 
imperfect,  illogical,  and  not  wrought  out  reasonably  to 
ultimate  conclusions.  You  deal  largely  in  opposites,  an 
tagonisms,  which  make  disputations  and  wars  essential 
to  progress,  if  not  indeed  to  quasi-happiness.  You  say 
that  without  evil  you  cannot  know  goodness,  that  without 
pain  pleasure  is  an  unknown  quantity,  that  without  sin 
the  term  righteousness  is  meaningless. 

"What  is  sin?  Sin,  say  your  teachers  of  the  unknow 
able,  is  any  want  of  conformity  to  or  transgression  of  the 
law  of  God.  What  is  God?  God  is  a  spirit,  infinite,  eter 
nal,  unchangeable,  in  his  being  wisdom,  power,  holiness, 
justice,  goodness,  and  truth. 

"To  all  this  I  receive  but  the  one  answer,  we  cannot 
understand  God's  ways,  he  who  sees  the  end  from  the 
beginning.  So  I  perceive,  and  I  say  then  why  preach  and 
pretend  to  teach  what  you  cannot  understand,  of  what  in 
truth  you  can  know  nothing.  I  am  surprised  no  less  at 
the  assumption  of  your  prophets  and  priests  than  at  the 
senselessness  and  stupidity  of  their  followers. 

"All  this  is  new  to  me,  and  exceedingly  interesting; 
wherefore  I  appear  before  you  as  a  humble  learner,  for 
doubtless  you  know  your  way  perfectly  through  this  maze 


AS    OTHERS    SEE    US  343 

of  intricacies.  For  ourselves  on  our  far  away  planet,  as 
fear,  and  hence  no  spirits  nor  spiritual  entities  no  gods 
there  is  present  no  element  of  evil  we  have  nothing  to 
or  devils.  While  evil  has  you  in  its  grip,  hardening  your 
nature  and  sharpening  your  intellect,  the  blessings  of  life 
are  with  us.  We  are  content  with  what  we  can  know, 
finding  imaginary  troubles  profitless. 

"The  terms  sin  and  evil  we  do  not  understand,  though 
doubtless  we  are  tinctured  by  them.  We  do  not  claim 
perfection  as  we  feel  ourselves  advancing,  yet  we  manage 
to  get  along  without  laws,  prisons  and  death-dealing  ma 
chinery,  and  find  ourselves  the  better  for  it.  With  our 
lesser  understandings  we  have  no  place  for  disobedience 
and  redemption,  consequently  no  systems  of  punishment, 
no  laws  for  the  regulation  of  conduct,  no  wars  for  the 
settlement  of  disputes.  The  tendency  with  us  to  do  wrong 
is  very  slight;  we  see  no  profit  in  it.  We  admonish  the 
unwary.  To  the  incorrigible  we  give  a  writing  that  he 
must  eliminate  himself;  we  have  no  trouble. 

''With  you  it  is  different.  You  seem  to  have  more 
concern  about  the  future,  of  which  you  know  nothing, 
not  even  indeed  that  there  is  a  future,  than  of  the  present, 
which  is  all  that  you  have  or  can  command.  You  fill  celes 
tial  space  with  beings  unseen,  impalpable,  which  you  call 
spirits,  endowing  them  with  various  qualifications;  some 
of  them  you  fall  down  and  worship,  others  you  flee  from 
with  cursings. 

"I  marvel  greatly  at  this  panic  fear  of  the  ghosts  you 
conjure  up,  wherein  you  make  the  shadow  more  terrible 
than  the  substance,  if  indeed  there  be  any  substance;  a 
panic  fear  which  in  the  brain  of  the  primitive  man  bred 
so  many  imps  of  light  and  darkness,  and  wrought  such 
havoc  among  the  votaries  of  every  faith,  and  to  some  rem 
nants  of  whch  you  still  insanely  cling. 

' '  Strange  that  the  struggles  so  fierce  and  blind  for  hap 
piness  should  bring  forth  such  woe ! 

"You  tell  me  that  man  is  naturally  religious,  the  pow- 


344  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

ers  of  nature  making  him  fearful  and  dependent,  in  which 
case  religion  is  as  much  a  part  of  savagism  as  of  civiliza 
tion,  as  much  a  part  of  the  animal  creation  as  of  man, 
for  the  beasts  of  the  field  are  frightened  by  the  destructive 
powers  of  nature. 

"You  say  that  woe  and  wickedness  are  necessary,  that 
without  pain  one  never  can  feel  pleasure,  without  sin  there 
is  no  righteousness.  We  in  our  world  are  content  on  these 
terms  to  leave  to  others,  for  their  enjoyment,  all  the  ills 
of  life.  From  what  I  have  learned  thus  far,  I  find  that 
you  have  here  more  misery  than  happiness,  more  sorrow 
than  joy.  If  I  am  rightly  informed  there  are  millions 
among  you  who  have  never  been  free  from  disease,  who 
have  never  once  known  what  it  is  to  have  enough  to  eat. 
With  us  life  is  a  pleasure ;  it  pays ;  we  do  not  spend  the 
larger  part  of  it  in  contentions.  Our  whence  and  whither 
trouble  us  not  at  all,  as  it  is  not  given  us  to  know.  If  this 
is  not  the  end,  and  your  theory  is  correct,  when  we  pass 
on  we  shall  still  be  under  the  same  dominion  we  are  now, 
with  every  thought  and  act  of  our  lives  known.  I  can 
not  see  in  your  method  here  the  part  of  wisdom.  I 
cannot  see  how  battering  your  heads  against  a  stone  wall 
is  to  bring  you  knowledge,  or  how  blowing  each  other  to 
pieces  with  dynamite  is  to  improve  your  morals. 

"You  are  supposed  to  be  a  logical  and  reasonable 
people,  and  yet  you  set  aside  your  reason  when  most 
needed.  When  I  say  that  you  have  no  evidence  to  offer 
me  of  a  life  beyond  the  grave,  or  of  a  miracle,  or  of  an 
occurrence  outside  of  nature  since  nature  began,  I  am 
answered  by  a  blind  stare. 

"As  for  your  manners  they  are  better.  You  are  open, 
generous,  kind-hearted,  and  loyal  to  your  traditions  in 
posse  if  not  in  esse.  Everywhere  I  have  been  met  by  the 
most  courteous  treatment,  for  among  your  many  virtues 
hospitality  is  not  the  least  conspicuous.  I  was  at  once 
admitted  to  the  inner  circle  of  your  several  cults  and  per 
mitted  to  explore  your  various  polities. 


AS    OTHERS    SEE    US  345 

"  Availing  myself  of  the  opportunity  thus  offered  for 
investigation  I  first  glanced  cursorily  at  the  various  sys 
tems  in  vogue  throughout  the  world,  of  which  there  is  any 
record,  from  the  Hammurabi  code  of  Babylon  and  the 
Hindu  code  of  Manu  to  the  books  of  the  Buddha  and  of  the 
Jews  and  Christians  of  the  present  day.  I  find  that  Manu, 
the  son  of  Brahma,  the  supreme  creator,  was  the  first  of  cre 
ated  beings.  His  code,  formulated  a  thousand  years  before 
Christ,  in  common  with  almost  all  the  sacred  books  pre 
scribes  rules  for  government,  public  and  private  morals, 
as  well  as  forms  of  worship,  and  on  to  the  transmigration 
of  the  soul. 

"The  same  rules  of  natural  morality  run  through  all 
the  sacred  books,  whether  the  Vedas  of  the  Braham,  the 
Zend-avesta  of  the  Parsee,  the  Talmud  of  the  Jew,  the 
Bible  of  the  Christian,  the  Koran  of  the  Mohammedan,  or 
the  Book  of  Mormon,  showing  that  without  laws  and  pun 
ishments  for  crimes  against  nature  and  society,  as  murder, 
theft,  and  adultery,  mankind  cannot  dwell  together  in 
safety. 

"Yet  in  all  these  books,  from  the  code  of  Hammurabi 
of  Babylon,  to  the  Christian  code  of  to-day,  there  are  end 
less  antagonisms  and  contradictions.  Though  in  the  main 
the  same  ethical  precepts  run  through  them  all  customs 
and  commandments  of  course  vary.  Thus  the  Jews  and 
Mohammedans  advocated  war,  while  the  Christians  op 
posed  it.  'Saul  hath  slain  his  thousands  and  David  his 
tens  of  thousands/  therefore  David  is  the  better  man,  and 
is  made  king  of  Israel.  Yet  I  find  in  the  king  of  Christian 
Germany  to-day  the  counterpart  of  Hammurabi  of  Baby 
lon,  'a  military  despot  claiming  to  rule  by  authority  of 
the  gods  Anu,  Bel,  and  Morduk. '  The  campaign  of  Joshua 
in  Jordan,  under  the  immediate  auspices  of  the  Jewish 
deity  with  its  attendant  wrongs  and  cruelties,  was  not 
altogether  unlike  the  laying  waste  of  Belgium  by  the 
German  kaiser,  which  civilization  regards  with  horror. 
Wherefore  in  claiming  the  vicegerency  of  God,  the  alleged 


346  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

omnipotent  and  unchangeable  creator  of  the  universe,  the 
kaiser  should  state  whether  it  is  the  God  of  the  Hebrews 
or  the  God  of  the  Christ  that  he  stands  sponsor  for,  as 
in  your  Bible  God  is  represented  as  the  same  being  though 
quite  different  in  character.  All  of  the  sacred  books  coun 
tenance  slavery,  polygamy,  and  killing  of  prisoners  of  war, 
which  advanced  civilization  does  not  permit. 

"Asia,  the  mother  of  all  the  great  religious,  is  usually 
infested  with  propagandists  with  her  own  made-over  wares 
to  sell.  In  Arabia,  Persia,  and  India  the  creed  of  Islam 
prevails;  the  Brahminical  religion  obtains  in  India;  the 
doctrines  of  Confucius,  Laotse,  and  Buddha  in  China;  and 
scattered  Christianity  elsewhere.  Buddha,  the  wise,  the 
enlightened,  two  and  a  half  millenniums  old  is  his  cult, 
with  400  million  followers,  claims  the  first  place  in  the  re 
ligions  of  the  world.  These  400  millions,  other  400  millions 
of  Jews,  Christians,  Mohammedans,  and  the  rest,  would 
consign  to  eternal  torment  for  difference  of  opinion  regard 
ing  matters  concerning  which  none  of  them  know  anything. 

' '  Islam  is  credited  with  having  done  much  for  humanity 
and  progress  in  Europe  from  the  9th  to  the  13th  century, 
though  Jews  and  Christians  may  not  acknowledge  it.  Ortho 
dox  Judaism  and  Christianism  are  both  under  obligations 
to  the  progress  of  civilization  for  keeping  them  from  greater 
excesses  than  those  already  laid  to  their  charge. 

11  Pardon  me"  I  said  "but  would  you  kindly  tell  me, 
since  you  have  investigated  the  matter  intelligently  and 
thoroughly,  and  can  give  an  unprejudiced  opinion,  were  a 
stranger  like  yourself  to  come  to  this  earth  from  a  distant 
planet,  and  all  the  religions  of  the  world  were  placed  before 
him  for  his  selection,  Egypt,  Palestine,  Greece,  and  India 
being  the  earlier  fruits  of  faith,  and  Japan,  Mexico,  and 
Germany  among  the  later  ones,  which  would  he  choose?" 

"None  of  them,"  was  the  reply.  "Why  should  he? 
Your  pretended  proof  is  inadequate.  In  the  absence  of  evi 
dence  there  is  nowhere  any  ground  for  belief.  The  alleged 
miracles,  signs,  and  wonders;  the  alleged  revelations  from 


AS    OTHERS    SEE   US  347 

and  personal  intercourse  with  the  Almighty  which  is  claimed 
by  each,  he  would  place  them  all  in  the  same  category  as 
pure  fiction.  He  might  be  captivated  by  the  exalted  ideal 
ism  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  but  when  he  saw 
what  followed  all  along  the  centuries  as  the  fruits  of  such 
teachings,  the  diabolical  doings  of  professors  and  teachers 
of  Christianity,  wars,  murders,  persecutions,  tortures,  autos- 
da-fe  throughout,  and  the  general  summing  up  in  the  mad 
doings  throughout  the  world  to-day,  he  would  shun  any  sys 
tem  of  ethics  that  broughf  on  humanity  such  results. " 

" Atheism  then  were  preferable?" 

"If  you  choose  so  to  designate  it.  But  agnosticism  is 
not  atheism.  Regarding  a  matter  of  which  you  know  noth 
ing,  it  is  no  more  a  mark  of  merit  or  wisdom  to  affirm  than 
to  deny ;  there  is  no  merit  or  wisdom  in  either,  however,  but 
it  is  always  open  and  honest,  when  the  truth  cannot  be 
ascertained,  to  say  'I  do  not  know.'  This,  or  senseless 
speculation  which  accomplishes  nothing  and  reaches  no 
end. 

' '  Of  the  ten  greatest  religions,  it  is  conceded  by  all  that 
nine  of  them  are  false,  but  all  do  not  agree  as  to  which 
one  of  the  ten  is  the  true  one.  Each  will,  of  course,  say, 
'ours,  the  one  taught  us  by  our  church  and  on  our  mother's 
knee,  or  under  our  father's  sterner  methods;  our  religion 
is  the  only  true  one.  The  other  nine  are  lies,  emanating 
from  crass  ignorance  and  superstition. ' 

"So  it  has  been  until  now  rapidly  throughout  the  world 
the  tenth  is  being  cast  into  the  pot  with  the  others.  If 
belief  were  evidence,  and  evidence  from  belief  were  true, 
Christianity  might  set  up  a  strong  claim,  for  undoubtedly 
Christianity  is  the  best,  though  not  the  most  widely  ex 
tended  ;  and  this,  notwithstanding  the  unchristian  activities 
of  Christian  Europe,  or  the  Satanic  doings  of  Christ's  vice 
gerent  in  Germany. 

"I  notice,  further  that  beliefs  possessing  the  highest 
idealism  have  not  the  largest  number  of  votaries,  the  Budd 
hists  standing  first  with  over  400,000,000,  followed  by  the 


348  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

Christians  with  a  two-thirds  ratio,  Fetischism  having  some 
thing  less  than  half  as  many,  Mohammedan  and  Hindus 
being  still  fewer  in  number.  Thus  if  the  cravings  of  the 
soul  are  a  test  of  validity,  as  some  claim,  and  may  be  reck 
oned  by  numbers,  the  religion  of  China,  Japan,  and  Siam 
would  seem  to  have  the  best  of  it. 

"As  to  the  tenets  and  morals  of  the  several  great  reli 
gions,  as  well  as  to  their  truth  and  veracity  and  credibility, 
I  see  little  to  choose  between  them,  all  being  alike  illogical, 
improbable,  not  to  say  impossible.  It  is  as  easy,  or  rather 
as  difficult,  to  believe  one  as  another.  The  alleged  signs  and 
wonders,  the  miracles  and  supernatural  apparitions  attend 
ant  as  proof  as  a  rule  are  not  offered  is  evidence  until  some 
few  centuries  after  the  cult  is  invented. 

"We  will  grant  to  Christianity  the  highest  ideals  and 
the  purest  morality,  which  naturally  go  with  the  foremost 
civilization;  but  are  they  not  too  sublimated  for  practical 
use,  and  therefore  inoperative  ?  In  ethics  and  action  noth 
ing  could  be  worse  than  the  late  mad  performances  in 
Christian  Europe.  It  seems  to  me  that  Christianity,  having 
a  superior  civilization  to  control  it,  to  drive  out  some  of 
its  barbarisms,  as  slavery,  polygamy,  and  the  like,  is  more 
refined;  that  is  all. 

"You  all  alike  endow  your  gods  with  your  own  propen 
sities  and  passions,  having  none  others  to  give  them,  and 
set  them  to  fighting  one  another  for  the  chief  rulership. 
Then  you  fall  too  yourselves  and  commit  the  most  horrible 
atrocities  upon  each  other  to  prove  that  your  gods  and 
your  religion  is  the  best  and  purest  and  kindest  of  them  all. 
You  take  me  to  India  and  Egypt  and  Arabia  and  show 
me  there  the  great  religions  still  groveling  in  the  dust ;  then 
to  the  land  of  Confucius,  and  to  the  island  of  the  turtle's 
back  where  the  Mikado  sits  serene  as  God  himself;  then 
to  Europe  where  flourish  the  most  advanced  learning  and 
intelligence,  where  are  wrought  out  the  highest  ideals 
of  the  purest  of  teachers,  and  the  results  are  shown  in 
a  carnival  of  crime,  a  horrible  butchery  of  Christians  by 


AS    OTHERS    SEE    US  349 

Christians,  until  my  soul  cries  out  'Oh!  none  of  that, 
none  of  that!  none  of  anything  I  have  seen.  If  such  as 
this  is  what  religion  brings  upon  a  people  we  are  better 
off  without  it. ' 

"In  matters  of  belief,  reason  requires  evidence,  and 
without  evidence  there  is  no  true  belief.  To  affirm  belief 
without  evidence  is  simply  to  assert  an  impression  or  long 
ing,  which  though  it  may  satisfy  faith,  is  not  sufficient  for 
common  sense. 

"The  sacred  books  are  all  badly  edited,  the  Hebrew 
scriptures  particularly  so,  making  of  their  creator  at  once 
a  deity  and  a  devil.  They  begin  by  endowing  a  being  of 
alleged  holiness,  justice,  goodness  and  truth,  a  being  merci 
ful,  unchangeable,  omnipotent,  omniscient,  perfect  in  all 
his  parts,  with  all  the  mixed  good  and  evil  qualities  man 
finds  in  himself  intensified.  The  object,  or  necessity,  or  im 
portance,  of  the  trinity  myth,  found  in  the  Athanasian 
creed  but  not  in  the  scriptures,  is  nowhere  clearly  seen. 
The  absurdity  of  it,  however,  is  plain  enough.  A  trinity,  a 
three  in  one,  all  three  of  the  essential  nature  of  the  supreme 
being.  'Three  persons  in  the  Godhead,'  whatever  that 
might  be,  'the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
these  three  are  one  God,  the  same  in  substance,  equal  in 
power  and  glory.' 

"Were  he  permitted  to  question,  your  boy  might  ask 
the  meaning  of  the  word  'Godhead,'  might  even  turn  to 
the  dictionary  and  read  '  the  essential  nature  of  the  supreme 
being,'  though  deriving  little  information  or  satisfaction 
therefrom. 

"You  have  a  singular  way  of  proving  or  attempting  to 
prove  the  authenticity  of  your  sacred  books.  You  quote 
the  scriptures  to  prove  the  truth  of  the  scriptures.  Brought 
up  against  contradictions  and  absurdities,  you  fall  back 
upon  the  stereotyped  phrase,  'We  do  not  understand,' 
which  is  the  one  truth  of  your  argument. 

"The  words  of  scriptures  to  prove  the  truth  of  the 
scriptures — this,  and  a  so-called  internal  evidence,  which 


350  IN   THESE   LATTER   DAYS 

is  no  evidence,  but  simply  sighing  sentimentality,  or  it 
may  be  an  affection  of  the  liver.  The  unfortunates  void  of 
this  internal  feeling  must  suffer  eternal  torment  in  con 
sequence. 

' '  I  picked  up  a  printed  sermon,  the  other  day,  preached 
in  a  Connecticut  pulpit  just  a  hundred  years  ago.  It  was 
a  warning  to  young  men  to  avoid  certain  devious  ways  that- 
led  to  a  horrible  crime  just  then  committed.  The  discourse 
was  argumentative  to  show  that  it  is  better  to  be  good, 
and  not  commit  murder  and  be  hanged  for  it.  And  it 
began  in  this  wise.  'We  will  assume  that  the  Bible  is  true, 
that  it  is  the  direct  inspired  word  of  God  our  creator.' 
That  settled  it.  The  good  minister  of  that  orthodox  con 
gregational  society  might  then  have  simply  referred  his 
people  to  the  scriptures  for  their  enlightenment,  and  so 
have  saved  himself  and  them  an  hour  of  drawling  talk. 

"  Suppose  you  were  brought  into  court  to  testify  in  a 
case  about  which  you  knew  nothing,  and  you  were  asked, 
'Do  you  know  aught  of  the  prisoner  at  the  bar,  or  of  the 
crime  he -is  alleged  to  have  committed?'  and  you  answer, 
'  I  do  not  know  him,  but  I  have  heard  of  him  in  a  vague  way 
many  years  ago.  I  know  nothing  of  the  misconduct  you 
speak  of,  but  I  am  satisfied  the  man  is  innocent. '  'Why  are 
you  satisfied;  on  what  evidence,  and  for  what  reason?' 
'It  is  not  a  question  of  evidence  or  reason,  but  of  faith,  of 
belief,  of  conviction.  I  have  in  my  heart  the  testimony,  of 
the  holy  spirit, — 'Hold,'  the  judge  would  say;  'methinks 
you  are  an  idiot;  you  may  go.' 

"The  meanlingless  mummeries  I  see  attending  all  re 
ligious  services  are  an  offense  to  the  healthy  mind.  In  ordi 
nary  matters  you  seem  sane  enough ;  when  it  comes  to  these 
spiritisms  you  are  queer ;  for  what  does  not  exist  at  all  you 
make  much  ado. 

"Tell  me,  I  pray  you,  whence  you  derive  this  principle 
of  evil  which  so  troubles  you,  you  who  claim  orthodoxy  in 
the  most  advanced  creed.  Evil  exists ;  God  made  all  things, 
yet  God  is  not  the  author  of  evil.  God  hates  evil,  and 


AS    OTHERS    SEE    US  351 

being  omnipotent  could  in  a  moment  destroy  it,  yet  does 
not.  You  dare  not  charge  your  God  directly  with  the 
authorship  of  evil,  as  that  would  disestablish  his  character 
for  absolute  goodness  with  which  you  have  endowed  him. 
Then  how  came  the  serpent  in  Eden  as  one  of  God's  crea 
tions? 

"I  beg  pardon,  but  may  I  ask  in  all  sincerity,  humility, 
and  reverence,  can  a  perfect  creative  being  authorize  an 
imperfect  product?  Can  a  just  creative  being  authorize 
and  maintain  injustice?  Who  made  Lucifer,  placing  him 
in  heaven,  and  why?  Were  it  possible  for  a  beneficient, 
omniscient  creator  to  make  a  fallible  creature,  knowing  all 
the  while  of  the  future  disobedience  which  was  to  bring  un 
justly  a  world  of  misery  on  mankind  throughout  all  future 
generations  ? 

' '  So  I  say  of  all  these  sacred  books  that  I  find  them  badly 
edited.  More  common  sense  with  some  modicum  of  con 
sistency  and  logic  should  have  been  used.  They  at  least 
should  themselves  know,  if  no  one  else  did,  what  to  them 
signified  sacred.  If  the  direct  work  and  word  of  God,  then 
one  might  ask,  are  not  all  the  works  of  God  equally  sacred, 
even  the  evil  which  he  pretends  to  abominate  and  yet 
though  all-powerful  permits.  Moses  for  example  gives  him 
self  away  when  in  writing  his  ten  commandments  he  in 
vests  his  deity  with  the  rank  injustice  of  visting  the  sins 
of  the  fathers  upon  the  children,  instead  of  setting  up  a 
duality,  one  of  the  two  being  a  plain  palpable  devil,  which 
almighty  power  finds  too  much  for  him  to  handle, — another 
solecism.  The  doctrine  of  the  trinity,  concocted  by  others 
later  is  still  worse,  making  an  omnipotent,  omniscience 
creator  powerless  to  eradicate  or  overcome  the  evil  of  which 
he  was  the  responsible  author  without  perpetrating  the 
rank  injustice  of  sacrificing  an  innocent  person  to  save  a 
world  full  of  other  innocent  persons  from  his  unreasonable 
and  unjustifiable  wrath  because  of  sins  which  they  never 
had  committed. 

" Israel's  God,  Christ's  God,  and  Islam's  God  are  the 


352  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

same.  There  is  but  one  God,  and  Moses  Christ  or  Mo 
hammed,  is  as  you  choose  his  prophet.  All  affirm  the  per 
fections  of  God,  while  bestowing  upon  him  numberless  im 
perfections  ;  all  affirm  his  immutability,  his  goodness  mercy 
and  justice,  and  yet  write  him  down  in  their  holy  books  in 
his  actions,  merciless  unjust  and  diabolical.  All  have  their 
heaven  and  hell  to  one  or  the  other  of  which  every  individ 
ual  is  assigned.  You  cannot  be  right  is  all  this.  If  God 
is  all  perfection  as  claimed,  then  he  could  not  be  the  author 
of  such  laws  and  acts;  if  otherwise,  then  he  must  be  the 
author  of  evil  as  well  as  of  good. 

"In  Christianism,  with  the  sublime  teachings  and  prac 
tise  of  its  founder  I  find  embodied  most  of  the  absurdities 
and  fanaticisms  of  the  ancient  cults,  with  many  dogmas 
more  impossible  than  any  before  promulgated. 

"Even  believing  as  you  may,  or  as  you  fancy  you  be 
lieve,  or  as  you  have  been  taught  to  believe  regarding  mir 
acles,  ghosts,  immaculate  conceptions,  immortality  of  the 
soul,  and  the  great  creative  and  evolutionary  force,  the 
God  of  your  fathers,  it  is  still  strange  that  rational  beings 
of  the  present  century  should  still  entertain  as  veritable 
truths  the  weird  fancies  of  ancient  ignorance  and  supersti 
tions  remolded  to  fit  the  purpose  of  any  impostor,  and  drone 
over  the  same  in  churches  for  the  imaginary  good  of  their 
souls. 

1 '  Christ  was  either  the  being  he  professed,  one  with  God, 
or  God  himself,  or  else  he  was  an  impostor.  He  came  to  this 
earth  with  limitless  love  and  power,  capable  as  was  claimed 
of  bringing  to  an  end  at  once  all  woe  and  wickedness,  all 
suffering,  all  wars  and  contentions;  he  remained  a  few 
short  years,  preached  high  idealism,  performed  a  few  al 
leged  miracles,  and  went  away,  himself  suffering  a  needless 
death,  saying  he  would  return  and  finish  his  work.  He 
failed  in  his  promises  as  in  his  performances.  You  have 
waited  2,000  years,  and  still  you  say,  l  Oh,  in  his  own  good 
time. '  Will  you  wait  2,000  years  more,  and  after  that  4,000 
years,  and  still  say  the  same,  all  the  while  millions  upon 


AS    OTHERS    SEE   US  353 

millions  of  suffering  souls  consigned  to  perdition  because  of 
this  delay,  illimitable  sufferings  in  this  world  and  in  the 
world  to  come,  sufferings  which  he  might  end  with  a  single 
breath  and  does  not.  To  those  who  hold  to  such  a  diabolical 
doctrine  I  can  only  say  show  me,  I  beseech  you,  how  it  can 
be  true. 

' t  The  scheme  of  salvation  through  the  sufferings  of  Christ 
was  perhaps  the  most  irrational  and  bungling  of  anything 
concocted  by  any  of  the  great  religions.  An  omnipotent, 
omniscient  creator,  whose  attributes  are  justice,  goodness 
and  truth,  with  no  taint  of  evil,  makes  man  after  his  own 
image,  yet  fills  him  with  evil  passions  which  he  knows  will 
have  vent,  lays  commands  upon  him  which  he  knows  will 
be  broken,  condems  countless  millions  to  endless  torment  by 
reason  of  the  fall  of  this  one  man  and  woman,  never  being 
able  though  still  all  powerful  to  lift  the  alleged  un 
merited  sin  from  the  shoulders  of  the  condemned  except 
by  subjecting  another  innocent  being  to  a  painful  death 
on  the  cross. 

"In  ten  thousand  pulpits  are  ten  thousand  preachers, 
with  a  lame  logic  that  always  falls  back  on  subterfuge  labor 
ing  in  argument  to  prove  that  God  is  not  as  your  Bible 
represents  him. 

"If  throughout  the  whole  sidereal  system,  in  space  il 
limitable,  in  time  eternal,  millions  upon  millions  of  whirl 
ing  worlds  and  whirling  systems  and  constellations  of 
worlds, — if  on  each  of  these  worlds  there  is  the  same  ratio 
of  suffering  humanity,  the  same  ratio  of  wrong,  injustice, 
cruelty,  and  abject  misery,  the  same  ugly  element  of  evil 
as  displayed  in  hate,  contentions,  wars,  and  brutal  murder, 
one  would  hardly  think  that  a  kind,  just,  and  benevolent 
creator  would  regard  his  work  with  complacency,  even 
though  he  should  pronounce  it  very  good." 

Vanity  of  vanities  saith  the  preacher,  I  know  not.  Then 
why,  my  dear  preacher,  do  you  preach  at  all;  why  make 
yourself  ridiculous  beating  the  air  over  bundles  of  con- 

12 


354  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

tradictory  absurdities  which  you  know  cannot  all  of  them 
possibly  be  true? 

My  foreign  friend  left  me  paralyzed.  I  wished  the 
damned  little  "[Iranian  had  stayed  at  home,  had  never  left 
his  miserable  planet  to  come  hither  and  disturb  me  in  my 
so  comfortable  imaginings.  I  was  unsettled  enough  in  my 
mind  before;  better  a  fool's  paradise,  or  the  half  of  one, 
than  no  paradise  at  all.  Nay,  not  so ;  for  a  fool 's  paradise 
no  longer  satisfies.  Let  us  have  the  truth  though  the  heav 
ens  fall.  We  would  not  rest  in  a  purgatory  of  doubt,  were 
we  not  forced  to  do  so;  and  even  with  the  mind  but  par 
tially  emancipated  from  its  former  bondage,  we  may  know 
that  these  primitive  teachings  to  still  primitive  believers 
are  not  to  be  relied  upon.  And  truth  alone  will  answer 
now,  and  that  I  know  not;  no  one  knows,  nor  can  know, 
now. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

SPIRIT    WORSHIP    OF    TO-DAY 

« 

IMAGINE  a  realm  of  nothingness,  the  universe  non 
existent,  illimitable  space  empty,  a  dark  unoccupied 
eternity  of  endless  extension, — no  earth,  no  sky,  no  nature, 
no  super-nature ;  no  worlds  or  systems  of  worlds,  no  suns, 
no  stars;  no  beings,  spiritual  or  material;  no  gods,  no 
devils,  no  creator  nor  any  created  thing.  Picture  this  vast 
emptiness  in  your  imagination  and  you  may  perhaps  have 
some  faint  idea  of  the  ape-man's  environment  as  it  ap 
peared  to  him  while  slowly  assuming  self-consciousness. 

To  his  brutish  brain  all  is  a  blank,  until  as  the  human 
element  awakens  he  comes  to  himself,  becomes  cognizant 
of  his  own  evistence  and  takes  notice  of  the  objects  around 
him.  Descending  from  his  home  in  the  tree,  he  stands  erect 
and  walks  to  and  fro  upon  the  ground.  He  notices  the 
grass,  and  the  flowers,  and  the  trees,  and  the  water;  then 
he  looks  up  into  the  blue  sky  and  beholds  the  clouds  and 
the  sun,  and  at  night  the  twinkling  stars.  In  due  time  the 
rational  appears  to  take  the  place  of  brute  instinct,  and 
man  becomes  a  responsible  being,  according  to  the  develop 
ment  of  intellect,  and  must  give  an  account  forever  after 
for  this  gift  of  reason.  He  may  not  at  any  future  time 
ignore  it,  or  lay  it  aside  and  install  in  its  place  blind  faith 
or  the  dogmas  of  superstition  without  paying  the  penalty. 

Once  more  set  your  mind  to  conceive  a  primeval  noth 
ingness,  and  fancy  how  you  would  fill  it,  how  questions 
would  arise,  what  and  whence  is  it  all,  questions  as  yet  to  us 
unanswered,  and  to  the  many  millions  who  have  come  and 

355 


356  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

gone,  or  are  now  coming  and  going,  never  here  to  be  an 
swered. 

Since  as  half-man  we  thus  made  our  first  appearance 
among  material  things,  which  seemed  more  unreal  to  the 
newcomer  than  would  have  seemed  to  him  actual  unreality, 
we  have  made  some  progress  in  knowledge,  but  when  we 
look  into  a  modern  telescope  and  see  a  trifle  farther  into 
the  infinity  of  space,  see  millions  upon  millions  of  hitherto 
unrevealed  world  systems,  which  altogether  are  but  as 
specks  floating  in  the  air  compared  with  the  endless  beyond, 
we  cannot  but  feel  that  scant  has  been  our  advance  and 
trifling  indeed  our  present  knowledge. 

In  the  siderial  system  is  an  eternity  of  space  of  which 
we  know  nothing,  and  seemingly  never  can  know,  a  space 
into  which  millions  of  new  worlds  may  be  dropped  without 
occasioning  conflict,  a  region  occupied  by  a  thousand  heav 
ens  and  hells  awaiting  their  vast  congregations,  yet  where 
withal  they  never  will  be  filled. 

So  that  as  the  ape-man,  and  his  successors,  from  their 
fears  and  longings  filled  celestial  space,  as  they  to  their 
own  satisfaction  solved  the  riddle  of  their  environment,  and 
as  primitive  peoples  in  their  narrow  intellects  and  ignor 
ance  formulated  their  fancies  in  numberless  theories  and 
theologies,  so  we  find  here  laid  the  superstructure  upon 
which  our  present  faith  is  established  and  our  hopes  in  the 
future  erected.  In  material  things  we  have  made  some  ad 
vance,  dissipating  by  science  many  of  the  weird  conceptions 
of  the  savage,  but  as  to  the  whence  and  whither  we  know 
no  more  than  he. 

True,  there  are  numberless  myths  and  mythologies,  some 
of  them  written  down  in  sacred  books,  one  as  believable  as 
another,  to  any  one  of  which  we  may  pin  our  faith  and  stake 
our  soul's  salvation  if  we  choose  to  do  so. 

Such  to  the  mind  of  the  half-man  was  the  material  uni 
verse — a  blank.  Earth  and  sky,  sun  moon  and  stars  were 
as  if  they  were  not.  Self-consciousness  had  not  yet  come  to 
him,  still  less  a  consciousness  of  the  things  around  him. 


SPIRIT   WORSHIP    OF    TO-DAY  357 

So  with  a  clear  space  above  and  around  him  the  half-man 
comes  upon  the  scene,  and  begins  to  wonder,  and  so  won 
ders  to  this  day,  for  in  solving  the  mysteries  of  the  universe 
we  are  still  but  half-men. 

When  he  awoke  to  a  realization  of  his  own  existence 
and  began  to  take  note  of  the  objects  around  him,  he  was 
puzzled  as  to  their  origin,  even  as  we  poor  half-men  of  to 
day  are  puzzled;  for  the  profoundest  philosophers,  the 
deepest  thinkers,  the  most  erudite  scholars  are  no  nearer 
an  accounting  for  the  existence  of  things,  for  their  origin 
or  creation  than  the  primitive  man  when  he  first  came  to  a 
knowledge  of  himself. 

And  if  we  are  always  to  remain  in  this  ignorance,  if  we 
are  never  to  know  more  of  ourselves  than  we  know  at  pres 
ent,  perhaps  it  had  been  as  well  had  we  remained  always 
brutes,  and  so  have  been  saved  much  useless  speculation  and 
blood-bespilling  controversy. 

Appearances  to  this  new-born  creature  are  as  if  they 
were  not.  Perceptions  which  come  to  him  during  his  brute 
existence  are  sharpened  and  intensified;  a  keener  edge  is 
given  them  as  brute  instinct  merges  into  human  intelli 
gence. 

Yet  after  all  this  earth  and  our  planetary  system,  great 
and  marvelous  as  they  are,  and  most  wonderful  in  their 
movements,  are  but  an  insignificant  part  of  creation.  And 
of  man's  destiny  after  his  blind  career  on  this  planet  is 
ended  let  our  self -constituted  teachers  tell  us;  let  them 
tell  us  truly,  without  their  lame  logic  and  worthless  per 
sonal  opinion  for  which  we  care  nothing,  let  them  tell  us 
truly  or  keep  silent. 

The  world  is  now  as  it  ever  has  been,  full  of  conflicting 
beliefs,  or  what  are  called  beliefs.  Let  us  see  if  there  is  any 
one  point  regarding  which  all  will  agree.  Yes.  We  will 
all  agree,  even  if  it  be  a  solecism,  that  our  religion  is  the 
only  true  one.  Of  the  ten  greatest  religions  we  all  hold 
nine  of  them  to  be  false.  Were  all  religions  equal  in  mem 
bership,  every  believer  would  have  nine  against  him;  so 


358  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

that  if  numbers  are  evidence,  as  some  contend,  all  of  them 
are  unworthy  of  credence,  which  is  coming  perilously  near 
the  truth. 

"We  have  seen  how  from  fear  come  spirits,  and  how  from 
spirits,  gods  and  devils  are  made.  "We  have  seen  how  the 
mind  of  man  emerges  from  its  primitive  darkness,  how  as 
the  discomforts  and  demonstrations  of  nature  are  referred 
one  after  another  to  natural  causes  the  spirits,  whether  of 
good  or  evil  import,  disappear,  many  of  them  never  again 
to  return  in  any  form,  others  to  be  thrust  further  back  into 
the  unknowable,  increasing  in  power  and  importance  as  the 
numbers  diminish  until  the  one  only  and  true  God  is  left. 

So  as  it  has  been,  and  is,  will  it  continue  to  be  if  history 
is  worth  our  consideration. 

With  intellectual  development  and  the  increase  of  gen 
eral  intelligence  the  various  cults  in  vogue  throughout  the 
world  will  gradually  lose  force,  and  in  due  time  diseappear. 
It  is  the  law.  Religions  are  born  and  die  like  everything 
else ;  it  is  evolution,  progress. 

More  especially  is  this  the  case,  and  more  rapidly  is  the 
consummation,  when  the  thing  to  be  discarded  or  sup 
planted  is  not  an  entity,  but  an  unsubstantial  imaginary  or 
unreal  nonentity. 

It  is  plain  that  without  fear  and  dependence,  without 
feeling  the  necessity  of  protection  from  the  evil  which 
environs  us,  without  the  reward  for  safety  and  eternal  hap 
piness  held  out  there  would  be  no  such  thing  as  spirit 
worship  among  men. 

Further,  it  is  plain  to  be  seen  that  fear  springs  from 
ignorance,  that  as  the  mind  becomes  enlightened  the  causes 
of  natural  phenomena  become  known,  the  entity  behind  ap 
pearances  vanishes,  the  cause  of  fear  is  removed,  so  that 
we  have  to  go  back  of  this  and  find  something  still  more 
fanciful  and  intangible  to  worship  or  give  up  religion  alto 
gether. 

We  are  made  in  the  beginning  selfish  brutes,  every 


SPIRIT   WORSHIP    OF    TO-DAY  359 

man's  hand  against  every  other  man,  as  it  is  now  in  our 
daily  intercourse  with  each  other,  in  society,  in  politics,  in 
religion,  and  so  will  be  until  rewards  are  offered  for  better 
conduct  adequate  to  meet  the  requirements  of  reform. 

Now  the  limit  must  sometime  be  reached;  perhaps  it 
has  already  been  reached ;  we  can  fancy  nothing  more  con 
vincing  since  the  coming  of  the  Messiah  than  the  display  of 
Christian  charity  on  the  battlefields  of  Christendom. 

Devotees  will  assert  the  contrary,  but  the  fact  is  suscep 
tible  of  proof  that  religion  throughout  the  world  is  not  in 
creasing  but  is  rather  becoming  less.  Pure  and  undefiled 
religion,  it  has  been  called  by  some.  Behold  the  results  of 
Christ 's  mission  in  the  magnificent  ditch-work  of  his  people 
in  Europe  at  the  present  time!  Behold  how  the  world 
has  improved  from  the  first  man  to  the  last !  Behold  a  just 
Jehovah  holding  an  even  balance  over  the  works  of  his  crea 
tion!  Behold  the  fruits  of  the  sublime  teachings  of  the 
Lord  Christ!  Was  Cain,  the  first  murderer,  a  more  vile 
and  wicked  man  than  William  the  last  one,  the  champion 
man-killer  of  all  ages?  That  were  impossible.  For  Cain 
slew  only  one,  his  brother,  while  the  kaiser  may  count  his 
murders  by  the  million,  and  attended  by  such  cruelties  and 
treacheries  as  would  have  caused  Cain  to  blush  for  the 
insignificance  of  his  little  crime. 

Modern  theology,  from  dogmatic  anthropomorphism  is 
now  arrayed  upon  a  framework  of  feeling,  and  as  every 
person  has  his  own  separate  consciousness  to  deal  with, 
the  variety  of  inner  convictions  are  infinite.  About  it  all, 
about  what  cannot  be  fathomed  it  is  profitless  greatly  to 
concern  ourselves.  We  cannot  but  observe,  however,  that 
all  religions  are  gradually  leaving  the  human  race,  other 
forms  taking  their  place. 

The  appeals  made  to  us  are  more  drastic  than  convinc 
ing.  As  a  foundation  we  have  the  dogma  "believe  or  be 
damned."  As  there  are  many  worthy  people  who  cannot 
upon  the  evidence,  or  rather  lack  of  evidence,  believe  if  they 
would,  they  must  be  damned,  and  so  need  concern  them- 


360  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

selves  no  further  about  it.  Multitudes  say  they  believe  not 
knowing  or  caring  further  about  it,  which  is  for  all  spirit 
ual  purposes  just  as  well.  Hence  we  have  here  a  religion 
based  on  lies  and  pretense,  as  all  religions  must  be  in  the 
absence  of  any  evidence. 

We  may  say  that  we  have  evidence  in  our  hearts,  that 
religion  is  a  matter  of  feeling,  or  sentiment,  rather  than  of 
reason.  Individual  consciousness  is  employed  as  an  argu 
ment.  Then  how  about  the  facts,  which  cannot  be  affected 
by  belief  or  sentiment;  either  the  supernatural  is  with  us 
here  or  it  is  not;  and  a  further  life  beyond  the  present 
awaits  us,  or  it  does  not. 

In  the  interpretation  of  the  scriptures  the  Christian 
world  was  once  satisfied  with  the  dictum  of  pope,  priest, 
and  propagandist,  in  whom  was  vested,  all  through  the 
Dark  Ages,  as  they  claimed,  all  knowledge  of  the  divine 
will;  but  when  intellect  assumed  some  sort  of  sway,  and 
men  began  to  question,  the  only  explanation  of  the  unex- 
planable  being  the  old  refrain, '  *  We  cannot  fathom  the  pur 
poses  of  the  Almighty ;  he  who  knows  the  end  from  the  be 
ginning  alone  can  tell,"  the  answer  was  no  longer  satisfy 
ing.  Those  who  had  pretended  so  long  to  know  all  about 
God,  all  that  he  knew  of  himself,  or  more,  must  find  some 
thing  besides  empty  or  irrelevant  excuses  in  order  to  sus 
tain  the  profession  of  teachers  to  persons  of  thought  and 
reason. 

How  came  Moses  to  know  so  much  about  the  creator  and 
the  creation?  As  Moses  held  personal  intercourse  with 
God  perhaps  God  told  him,  in  which  case  Moses  should  have 
made  his  narrative  clearer.  Was  the  beginning  at  the  time 
of  creation  the  beginning  of  mind  or  of  matter,  the  begin 
ning  of  this  earth  or  of  the  universe  ?  God  is  a  spirit,  eter 
nized  he  said.  Had  this  spirit  then  filled  the  infinity  of  space 
alone  from  all  eternity  ?  Has  it  taken  the  world  then  6,000 
years  to  find  out  what  Moses  could  have  told  us  in  his  ' '  be 
ginning"  namely,  that  this  world  is  but  an  atom  of  dust, 
our  sun  but  the  faintest  spark  of  light  as  compared  with  the 


SPIRIT    WORSHIP    OP    TO-DAY  361 

millions  upon  millions  of  worlds  and  suns  and  systems? 

Evidently  Moses  did  not  know  any  more  of  what  he 
wrote  than  the  theologians  of  the  present  day,  who  are  still 
at  work  in  the  vain  endeavor  to  formulate  a  being  to  fit 
the  alleged  acts  and  attributes  of  the  deity  to  the  statements 
of  scripture. 

Thus  we  are  told  that  in  six  days  God  created  all  things, 
and  pronounced  the  creation  good, — afterward  finding  it  in 
many  respects  bad.  Out  of  nothing  he  created  the  earth, 
and  all  that  therein  is ;  the  sun  and  moon ;  he  made  the  stars 
also.  Was  this  nothing  nebula,  and  did  it  contain  matter, 
or  did  spirit  fill  all  space^  alone  and  in  darkness  filling  all 
space  from  all  eternity?  All  this  Moses  should  have  in 
quired  into,  that  he  might  inform  us. 

If  Moses,  who  knew  so  much  of  God,  his  ways  and  works, 
and  who  came  in  close  personal  contact  with  him,  had 
chosen  to  tell  us  something  more  of  the  origin  of  the  uni 
verse,  why  and  wherefore  there  was  any  creation ;  was  God 
lonely  filling  space  only  with  his  presence,  and  if  so  why  did 
he  wait  so  long,  from  the  everlasting,  just  now  beginning 
for  hiself  a  new  dispensation  by  interjecting  time  into  eter 
nity  ?  Had  he  told  us  this  it  had  been  greatly  to  our  edifi 
cation. 

Instead  of  choosing  the  earth  as  the  centre  of  his  eluci 
dations  had  he  begun  with  heaven,  its  pearly  gates  and 
streets  of  gold,  and  happy  occupants ;  and  thence  had  pro 
ceeded  to  the  great  suns  and  planetary  systems,  thus  open 
ing  our  eyes  a  little  to  that  inconprehensible  infinity  that 
environs  us ;  telling  us  something  of  how  other  worlds  were 
made,  and  how  occupied, — this  instead  of  employing  the 
sun  only  to  rule  by  day  and  the  moon  to  rule  by  night,  and 
passing  over  the  little  celestial  ornaments  that  sparkle  in 
the  sky,  their  nature  and  origin  and  occupation,  dismissing 
the  subject  with  five  words  only,  l '  He  made  the  stars  also, ' ' 
it  surely  would  have  been  better  than  the  long  accounts  he 
gave  of  the  bickerings  of  his  petted  band  of  half-savage 
Israelites  in  their  escape  from  bondage. 


362  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

He  might  have  told  us  why  we  should  call  our  Jehovah 
a  God  of  love  rather  than  a  God  of  hate,  if  it  is  through 
fear  of  reprisal  that  we  avoid  the  latter.  He  might  have 
informed  us,  amid  so  many  other  things  that  seem  to  us  so 
strange,  why  a  being  all-merciful,  all-just,  all-powerful 
should  establish  a  creation  so  full  of  misery,  why  he  should 
turn  the  waste  of  waters  into  a  world-wide  gladiatorial  am 
phitheatre,  in  which  throughout  endless  ages  the  myriads 
of  inhabitants  come  and  go  having  no  purpose  or  occupa 
tion  save  the  killing  and  eating  of  each  other,  an  arena  of 
hell  for  creatures  created  for  no  apparent  purpose  and 
which  had  committed  no  crime.  And  like  occupation  for 
land  animals,  forests  filled  with  devouring  wild  beasts,  and 
cities  filled  with  devouring  tame  beasts,  man  being  the 
wickedest  and  bloodiest  beast  of  them  all.  Kindly  tell  us 
Moses,  why  this  for  a  God  of  love  ?  And  Moses,  kindly  do 
not  talk  nonsense. 

As  time  passed  on  came  a  revolution  of  human  knowl 
edge  and  ideas.  Old-time  beliefs  evaporated  as  their  fal 
sity  appeared  under  the  light  of  science.  And  all  this  time 
were  more  wars,  and  in  them  more  wrongs  cruelities  and 
injustice  were  inflected  in  the  fighting  and  massacres  of 
Christians  by  Christians,  than  in  all  preceding  conflicts  of 
which  we  have  record. 

Stellar  spectroscopy  now  unveils  the  infinite  to  vaster 
infinities  beyond,  revealing  millions  of  suns  and  systems, 
millions  of  millions  greater  and  more  distant  than  any  here 
tofore  imagined  or  of  which  the  mind  of  man  can  conceive. 

The  Old  Testament  with  its  barbarisms  and  contradic 
tions  is  now  pretty  generally  disregarded  by  intelligent 
persons  who  look  upon  it  as  a  bundle  of  myths  rather  than 
veritable  history.  Some  disregard  the  New  Testament  also. 

Some  of  us  felt  it  incumbent  on  us  at  one  time  to  accept 
the  orthodox  scriptures  as  veritable  truth,  as  the  word  of 
God  to  man,  the  only  word  he  has  ever  spoken  to  us,  as 
containing  our  only  knowledge  of  him,  and  the  only  rules 
for  the  regulation  of  our  conduct.  There  is  nothing  which 


SPIRIT   WORSHIP    OF    TO-DAY  363 

fastens  itself  so  ineffaceably  upon  the  mind  and  imagination 
as  early  teachings  by  a  superior  in  whose  word  we  have  con 
fidence;  so  that  when  out  of  the  dark  ages  of  the  remote 
past  an  apparent  light  comes,  which  even  though  it  be  only 
an  ignis  fatuus  our  beloved  instructor  tells  us  is  true  and 
veritable  illumination  from  the  throne  of  God,  we  are  rene 
gade  if  we  do  not  believe,  and  forever  hold  to  such  belief. 

Without  the  penalty,  without  the  punishment  religion 
has  little  effect  on  conduct.  Hate  rules  where  love  lies 
bleeding.  Christ  preached  love,  which  is  the  fulfilling  of  a 
law  that  was  never  fulfilled.  Peace  on  earth,  good  will  to 
man;  and  wherever  Christianity  was  planted  for  a  thou 
sand  years  thereafter  the  fields  were  sowed  with  seeds  of 
hate,  and  wars,  and  autos-da-fe,  and  Bartholomew  mas 
sacres  followed. 

Nature's  laws  are  inexorable;  God's  laws  being  made 
by  man  are  mutable,  it  seems. 

Thus  it  turns  out  that  the  longer  he  lives,  and  the  more 
intelligent  he  becomes  the  less  clever  man  is  in  the  manu 
facture  of  his  deities.  The  pagans  are  more  logical  in 
propitiating  their  thirty  thousand  devils  who  would  fain  do 
them  evil,  leaving  their  good  gods  to  work  out  their  bene 
factions  in  their  own  way,  than  the  Christians  who  fill  their 
one  God  with  all  sorts  of  imperfections  and  diabolical  pro 
pensities  and  actions,  and  then  insist  that  he  is  wholly 
and  absolutely  good,  relegating  all  the  palpable  evils,  all 
the  wrongs,  cruelties,  and  injustice  forced  upon  us  to  a 
wicked  subordinate  whom  he  might  exterminate  at  any 
moment  if  he  would. 

When  we  hear  preached  from  the  pulpit  century  after 
century  the  same  old  heathen  stories  drawn  from  depths  of 
superstition  and  ignorance  and  presented  to  an  intelligent 
congregation  of  the  present  day,  with  all  the  hollow  argu 
ments  advanced  to  prove  their  divine  origin,  we  marvel  at 
the  enduring  credulity  of  mankind  in  affairs  pertaining  to 
the  unknowable. 

The  time  is  not  yet  ripe,  they  will  tell  you  in  their  mean- 


364  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

ingless  way,  and  while  they  wait  for  Christianity  to  ripen  in 
Christendom  behold  it  rots.  The  war  in  Germany  was 
attended  by  more  dastardly  deeds  than  were  ever  dreamed 
of  in  so-called  barbaric  or  biblical  times. 

Answer  to  the  question  are  there  more  Gods  than  one  ? 
"There  is  but  one  only  the  living  and  true  God." 

"How  many  persons  are  there  in  the  godhead?  Three, 
the  father  son  and  holy  ghost,  and  these  three  are  one  God 
the  same  in  substance,  equal  in  power  and  glory." 

Thus  the  one  God  is  quickly  divided  into  three,  under 
title  of  godhead,  to  which  term  no  adequate  explanation  is 
given. 

Why  is  he  more  a  fool  who  says  there  is  no  God  than  he 
who  says  there  is  a  God,  one  knowing  as  much  about  it  as 
the  other,  neither  knowing  anything?  Because  there  is 
nothing  but  opprobrium  to  be  gained  by  denial,  while  he 
who  shouts  with  the  multitude  receives  praise  and  profit. 
Peter  made  nothing  by  swearing  himself  free  from  Christ, 
but  when  he  wept  bitterly  he  was  given  the  keys  of  heaven 
and  Godship  for  his  earthly  successors.  The  English  are 
honest  enough  to  apply  the  correct  term  to  their  holy  "liv 
ings,"  the  burden  for  whose  support  rests  heavily  on  the 
workingman,  though  the  incumbent  has  no  more  religion  in 
him  than  the  hunting-parson's  hounds. 

The  strange  part  of  it  is  that  Christians  in  the  midst  of 
ever-increasing  knowledge  and  intelligence  should  so  long 
retain  a  ritual  which  makes  a  monster  of  their  deity,  clos 
ing  their  eyes  to  the  absurdity  of  creating  an  omnipotent 
being  who  is  not  omnipotent,  a  creator  of  all,  but  not  of  all. 
No,  no,  they  say,  God  cannot  be  the  author  of  evil.  Then 
who  is  the  author  of  evil,  pray? 

Though  civilization  is  always  in  advance  of  religion, 
forcing  it  to  better  behavior;  though  it  sometimes  seems 
slow  in  accomplishing  its  work,  it  conquers  in  the  end. 
slowly  uprooting  one  falsity  after  another  until  the  whole 
present  system  of  clap-trap  and  hypocrisy  in  the  face  of 
common  sense  falls  to  the  ground. 


SPIRIT    WORSHIP    OF    TO-DAY  365 

The  trouble  with  regard  to  Christianity  is  that  the  peo 
ple  who  adopted  it  have  outgrown  it.  Being  of  the  most 
advanced  civilization  they  no  longer  tolerate  the  dogmas 
of  the  Jews,  or  the  cruelties  excesses  and  injustice  of  the 
God  of  Moses,  while  in  the  later  dispensation  they  find  that 
in  practice  the  teachings  of  Christ  do  not  fit  his  theories, 
while  as  to  his  promises  and  pretensions  he  has  in  a  measure 
failed  to  make  them  good. 

As  government  is  given  according  to  existing  necessity, 
so  it  is  with  regard  to  religion.  First  fear  demands  it.  then 
love ;  fear  and  love  being  satisfied  we  imagine  we  can  do 
without  it.  We  have  now  an  opportunity  to  try,  being 
satisfied  to  leave  Asia  to  the  Buddha  and  Europe  to  the 
Christ. 

The  scared  volume  contains  no  strictures  against  slavery 
or  polygamy,  no  condemnation  of  the  cruelties  and  injus 
tice  of  the  Hebrews  in  their  wars  and  intercourse  with  other 
nations,  no  criticism  of  the  economy  of  God  and  the  quality 
of  his  rulership,  the  cruelties  and  injustice  of  an  alleged 
holy,  kind,  and  righteous  being. 

The  miracles  in  Egypt,  eminently  deceitful  and  unfair 
to  Pharaoh  were  formulated  long  after  their  alleged  occur 
rence,  and  the  credence  to  which  was  easily  established. 

The  same  policy  was  pursued  with  Pharaoh  in  hardening 
his  heart,  thus  making  obedience  impossible  and  then  pun 
ishing  him  for  disobedience,  and  in  which  punishment  great 
cruelties  upon  the  innocent  were  inflicted. 

God's  instructions  to  Joshua  in  regard  to  the  conquest 
of  Canaan  could  not  have  greatly  differed  from  his  in 
structions  to  the  German  kaiser  in  the  conquest  of  Belgium. 

One  would  think  that  Noah  should  have  been  punished 
for  his  drunkenness  so  soon  after  God  had  singled  him 
out  as  the  only  person  of  his  creation  worth  preserving  in 
an  ark  instead  of  cursing  poor  Ham  for  only  looking  upon 
the  disgusting  object  and  consigning  his  posterity  to  an 
ineffaceable  black  skin  forever,  no  matter  how  white  the 
soul,  the  most  pathetic  in  all  humanity.  After  all  Noah 


366  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

was  only  celebrating;  and  how  could  the  delectable  Shem 
and  Japhet  have  known  that  their  father  was  naked  if  they 
had  not  looked  at  him? 

Moses  taught  as  much  below  the  standard  he  set  up  for 
his  deity  as  Christ  taught  above  it.  Neither  were  consistent 
in  the  elucidation  of  the  divine  character,  nor  in  presenting 
the  logical  results  which  should  flow  from  it. 

The  God  of  the  Christians  two  thousand  years  later  was 
a  different  being.  Though  qualified  as  unchangeable  he 
had  greatly  changed,  being  now  all  love.  Instead  of  visit 
ing  the  sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children  to  the  third 
and  fourth  generations,  he  was  now  pronounced  as  pitying 
them  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  unchanging  yet 
changed,  all-powerful,  yet  powerless  to  save. 

How  much  in  orthodox  Christianity  of  all  that  was  once 
believed  to  be  true,  or  to  be  necessary,  has  been  already 
given  up ;  while  to  the  discarded  part  constant  additions  are 
being  made. 

It  is  scarcely  to  be  expected,  and  the  result  proves  it, 
that  we  should  find  in  a  narrative  of  the  Almighty,  his 
ways  and  works  on  this  earth,  his  character  and  idiosyn 
crasies,  written  by  different  persons  at  widely  different 
times  a  clear  and  consistent  account  covering  a  hypothet 
ical  period  of  six  thousand  years. 

In  the  alleged  books  of  Moses  God  is  introduced  as 
the  ever-existing,  ever-existent,  omnipotent,  omniscient,  un 
changeable  and  beneficent  creator  of  the  universe.  These 
characteristics  are  maintained  in  appearance  throughout 
the  entire  Hebrew  and  Christian  scriptures  of  the  Old 
and  New  dispensations,  yet  in  reality,  it  may  be  uncon 
sciously,  God  is  portrayed  as  the  author  of  evil  yet  power 
less  to  eradicate  it,  as  fickle,  impolitic,  changeable,  unjust, 
and  cruel.  He  makes  man  unable  to  resist  evil,  and  lays 
upon  him  a  command  which  God  previously  knew  the 
man  would  break,  introducing  for  that  or  some  other  pur 
pose  the  principle  of  evil  in  the  form  of  a  serpent,  knowing 
before-hand  that  he  should  unjustly  consign  to  eternal  pun- 


SPIRIT   WORSHIP    OF    TO-DAY  367 

ishment  an  innocent  posterity  for  this  man's  alleged  sin. 

Instead  of  giving  his  creatures  and  continuing  them 
in  holiness  and  happiness,  like  himself,  if  indeed  God  is 
happy,  they  are  infected  with  the  vilest  passions,  seeing 
which  God  exclaims,  "I  repent  me  that  I  made  man/' 
and  sets  about  destroying  his  people  with  a  flood,  in  which 
effort  he  fails,  Noah  proving  afterward  as  wicked  as  ever. 

Pleased  with  the  inhumanity  of  Abraham,  who  offers 
to  sacrifice  his  son  at  God's  command,  he  adopts  his  prog 
eny  as  a  favored  people,  promising  them  a  Messiah,  all 
the  rest  of  the  world  to  be  regarded  as  enemies,  whom  it 
were  right  and  praise-worthy  to  destroy  at  pleasure.  Thus 
God's  troubles  continue,  the  Jews  proving  to  be  no  better 
than  the  others. 

When  Christ  came  the  Hebrew  God  of  hate  and  re 
venge  was  transformed  into  a  God  of  love,  pitying  his 
people  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  yet  professedly 
powerless  to  deliver  them  from  the  sufferings  he  himself 
had  imposed.  Under  the  Christian  dispensation  the  char 
acter  of  God  became  so  much  further  involved  as  to  reduce 
the  whole  scheme  to  an  absurdity.  God  could  not  get 
the  world  out  of  its  troubles,  they  said,  without  inflicting 
some  sort  of  punishment  for  forced  indirection  and  for 
sins  never  committed.  An  innocent  victim  will  answer 
the  purpose,  and  so  through  the  so-called  immaculate  con 
ception  of  a  virgin,  an  only  begotten  and  well  beloved 
son  is  improvised  and  made  to  suffer  for  the  sins  of  the 
world.  Then  came  the  concoction  of  the  trinity,  and  after 
2,000  years  more  of  worse  contentions  and  cruelties  than 
ever  the  ethics  of  Jesus  finds  fruitage  in  Germany. 

It  is  strange,  the  doctrine  that  infinite  power  could 
find  no  other  way  out  of  the  dilemma  than  by  begetting 
a  son,  to  be  given  as  a  sacrifice  to  satisfy  the  wolves  of 
his  creation,  the  said  son  failing  to  make  good  his  pre 
tensions  or  to  keep  his  promises. 

For  a  heart  overflowing  with  tenderness,  love  and  for 
giveness  was  it  not  rather  uncharitable  to  forbid  Lazarus 


368  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

to  give  the  rich  man  in  hell  a  drink  of  water,  and  that 
simply  because  he  was  rich.  Think  of  Vanderblit,  Astor, 
Carnegie  and  the  many  oil  and  steel  barons,  the  munition 
makers  not  to  mention  the  railroad  robbers  and  the  ras 
cally  politicians  who  would  sell  their  souls  to  be  president 
or  steal  a  convention,  think  of  them  thirsting  and  Lazarus 
laughing  at  them. 

There  are  few,  even  among  labor-leaders,  who  would 
refuse  to  give  Rockefeller  a  drink  of  water  if  they  saw 
him  broiling  below — and  rather  enjoy  it.  Herein,  too, 
Christ  tacitly  admitted  the  existence  of  a  veritable  hell, 
which  most  of  his  alleged  followers  now  deny. 

Why  could  not  Christ  have  remained  a  few  days  or 
a  few  moments  longer  and  wiped  out  all  suffering,  all  sin 
and  sorrow,  which  he  might  easily  have  done  in  a  single 
breath  if  he  was  truly  as  he  pretended  to  be,  particular 
in  regard  to  the  injustice  and  atrocities  which  are  nowhere 
censured  in  the  Bible,  and  would  not  be  abolished  to  this 
day  if  left  for  religion  to  do  it.  Slavery  was  retained 
and  defended  up  to  the  last  moment  by  nearly  all  the 
people  of  the  southern  United  States ;  it  was  defended  alike 
by  clergy  and  laity  as  a  divine  institution,  and  so  it  was 
if  everything  that  God  made  is  divine. 

Slowly  the  God  of  Israel  is  undergoing  reconstruction 

by  his  votaries  without  their  knowing  it.     Yet  in  ten  or 

twenty  thousand  years  from  now  there  will  probably  be 

remnants  of  the  Christian  faith  still  awaiting  the  coming 

»    of  Christ  and  the  fulfillment  of  his  promises. 

The  mummeries  attending  religious  exercises  are  every 
day  becoming  more  and  more  offensive  to  healthy  minds, 
and  attendance  thereon  is  becoming  less  and  less,  both  in 
numbers  and  respectability. 

The  truth  is  with  us  and  will  not  be  put  down.  With 
the  seeds  of  righteousness  are  implanted  the  seeds  of  evil ; 
under  an  outward  display  of  love  of  peace  and  happiness 
are  hidden  hate,  discord,  and  revenge.  To  these  entities 
forms  are  given,  and  names  as  Gabriel,  the  Serpent,  Luci- 


SPIRIT   WORSHIP    OF    TO-DAY  369 

fer,  servants  of  omnipotence  yet  whom  omnipotence,  though 
greatly  disturbed  by  them,  could  not  or  would  not  exter 
minate. 

If  Christ  was  as  he  said,  veritable  God,  one  with  the 
creator,  omniscient,  the  same  in  mercy,  justice,  and  holi 
ness,  why  should  he  have  any  dealings  with  the  devil 
whatever  ? 

If  bringing  to  life  dead  Lazarus,  if  making  the  blind 
to  see  and  the  lame  to  walk  was  the  sort  of  work  to  satisfy 
divine  justice,  and  the  Christ  could  do  that  and  nothing 
more,  why  before  he  went  away  with  a  promise  to  return, 
which  he  did  not  keep,  why  did  he  not  spend  a  few  days 
more  and  rid  the  world  of  sin,  and  woe,  and  death? 

Few  now  believe  in  everlasting  fire  for  the  millions 
upon  millions  who  have  never  accepted  the  Christ ;  none  but 
the  most  credulous  believe  in  miracles.  Thus  one  after 
another  of  the  dogmas  of  Christian  faith  crumble,  until 
for  reasonable  beings  there  is  nothing  left. 

The  dogma  of  a  personal  devil  has  been  abandoned 
by  the  more  intelligent  members  of  the  church,  yet  Satan 
stands  forth  on  the  record  in  propria  persona  in  the  New 
as  well  as  in  the  Old  Testament.  Even  those  who  still  cling 
to  the  plain  words  of  the  inspired  writer  do  not  half  believe 
them.  Which  is  better  to  wholly  believe  half  the  Bible 
or  half  believe  the  whole  of  it?  The  course  usually  pur 
sued  by  orthodox  divines,  is  to  stoutly  affirm  as  true  one 
part  and  explain  away  the  impossible  parts  with  illogical 
verbiage.  In  one  place  Christ  is  given  over  to  be  tempted 
by  Satan,  who  roams  the  earth  like  a  roaring  lion,  seeking 
whom  he  may  devour.  Why  does  not  some  all-powerful 
lover  of  mankind  strangle  him? 

The  Jehovah  thus  formulated  and  worshiped  as  the 
supreme  deity  is  first  of  all  impossible  because  his  char 
acter,  his  words  and  acts  as  promulgated  in  the  Bible, 
the  sacred  book  alike  of  Jew  Christian  Mohammedan  and 
Mormon,  ''the  word  of  God  as  contained  in  the  scriptures 


370  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  and  the  only  rule  whereby 
we  may  know  him,"  are  not  consistent  one  with  another. 

The  mistake  made  by  every  devotee  is  that  out  of  the 
scores  of  conflicting  systems  of  faith  and  worship  his  is 
the  only  true  one. 

What  evidence  have  we  to  offer,  what  reason  have  we 
to  give  why  our  religion  should  be  accepted  by  all  the 
world  as  the  only  true  one  that  the  Hindu  has  not  to  give 
why  his  religion  should  be  accepted  by  all  the  world  as 
the  only  true  one? 

It  is  no  easier  to  believe  the  Lord  God  of  Moses  to 
be  the  creator  of  the  world  than  it  is  to  believe  in  Vishnu 
as  the  creator,  except  as  we  have  been  taught.  The  Mo 
hammedans  spurn  Christ  as  the  son  of  God  as  Christians 
spurn  Mohammed  as  his  prophet.  The  evidence  in  one 
case  is  no  better  than  the  evidence  in  the  other. 

How  many  of  the  learned  divinity  doctors  and  profes 
sors  who  spend  their  lives  in  defending  the  legerdemain 
of  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  who  claim  the  alleged 
supernatural  occurrences  set  forth  in  the  Bible  to  be  verit 
able  miracles,  special  interpositions  at  the  hand  of  the 
creator  in  asserting  or  subverting  the  course  of  nature 
in  dealing  with  certain  personages  for  weal  or  woe, — how 
many  of  these  special  pleaders  are  there  who  do  not  heap 
ridicule  on  those  who  speak  and  write  to  prove  true  the 
tricks  of  modern  spiritualism? 

The  stale  disseminations  from  the  pulpit  are, mostly 
false  doctrine  illogically  presented. 

Were  it  true,  all  the  alleged  miracles  and  petty  bene 
factions  of  Christ  for  which  the  world  pays  with  millen 
niums  of  adoration  and  praise,  performed  we  will  say  in 
order  to  prove  his  divine  origin  and  power,  of  what  avail 
to  a  world  of  suffering  humanity?  For  if  with  a  breath 
he  could  command  the  cure  of  one  disease  of  one  person, 
he  could  with  a  breath  command  the  cure  of  all  diseases 
for  all  time;  if  with  five  loaves  and  two  fishes  he  could 


SPIEIT   WORSHIP    OF    TO-DAY  371 

feed  five  thousand,  with  no  greater  power  he  could  feed 
a  starving  world  throughout  the  ages. 

The  time  is  not  ripe,  they  will  say,  which  is  fallacy, 
for  any  time  is  ripe  for  rescuing  a  world  in  woe;  any 
time  is  ripe  for  Christ  to  stop  the  slaughter  of  his  people 
throughout  Christendom,  to  heal  the  suffering  of  a  dozen 
nations  arising  from  his  failure  to  keep  his  promises. 

As  to  life  after  death,  that  is  a  matter  of  pure  specu 
lation;  there  is  no  evidence  of  it  whatever;  and  as  the 
feeling  or  sentiment  which  prompts  propagandizing  in  one 
person  may  not  exist  in  another  discussion  is  useless.  All 
those  who  can  derive  comfort  from  the  thought,  by  all 
means  let  them  entertain  it.  Should  they  never  awake 
in  another  world  they  will  never  know  they  were  in  error 
here. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE    NEW    RELIGION 

"TTTE  hear  talk  of  a  new  religion,  of  the  new  dispeu- 
V  V  sation  which  must  come  as  the  spirits  of  primeval- 
ism  take  their  leave.  "Old  things  have  passed  away," 
saith  the  scriptures.  "Behold  all  things  have  become 
new."  Yet  not  quite  all.  There  are  left  in  plenty  rem 
nants  of  ancient  faith  and  superstition.  Not  all  have  yet 
passed,  but  all  are  passing. 

And  of  what  color  and  consistency  will  be  the  new 
religion?  We  do  not  know.  We  may  know  that  it  will 
not  be  brought  upon  us,  as  all  dogmas  and  doctrines  have 
hitherto  been  presented,  as  the  work  of  one  person,  or 
personage,  of  any  one  entity  or  nonentity,  but  will  arise 
from  human  necessities  to  meet  human  wants  as  experi 
enced  in  this  world,  leaving  out  vain  imaginings  and  spec 
ulations  as  to  a  potential  hereafter. 

As  Maurice  Maeterlinck  says,  ' '  We  have  arrived  at  a 
stage  of  human  evolution  that  must  be  almost  unprece 
dented  in  history.  A  large  portion  of  mankind,  and  just 
that  portion  which  corresponds  with  the  part  that  hith 
erto  created  the  events  of  which  we  know  with  some  cer 
tainty,  is  gradually  forsaking  the  religion  in  which  it 
has  lived  for  nearly  twenty  centuries.  For  a  religion  to 
become  extinct  is  no  new  thing.  It  must  have  happened 
more  than  once  in  the  night  of  time;  and  the  annalists 
of  the  end  of  the  Roman  empire  make  us  assist  at  the  death 
of  paganism.  But  until  now  men  have  passed  from  a 
crumbling  temple  into  one  that  was  building;  they  left 
one  religion  to  enter  another;  whereas  we  are  abandoning 

372 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  373 

ours  to  go  nowhere.  That  is  the  new  phenomenon,  with 
the  unknown  consequences,  in  which  we  live." 

The  question  of  religion  is  still  troublesome  in  these 
latter  days,  as  it  always  has  been,  though  not  as  much  so 
as  it  once  was;  in  war  times  the  fate  of  the  soul  is  subor 
dinated  to  the  fate  of  the  body.  Yet  religion  is  destined 
to  remain  a  vexed  question  until  cults  die  or  human  nature 
changes.  And  for  the  latter  we  find  little  encouragement; 
sound  the  depths  of  the  human  heart  as  we  may  and  we 
can  discover  no  psychological  difference  in  the  murder  of 
his  brother  by  Cain  and  the  murder  of  Belgium  by  the 
kaiser. 

Over  this  ever-entangled  phantasmagoria,  emblem  of 
peace  and  happiness,  more  quarrels  have  arisen,  more  cru 
elties  have  been  perpetrated,  more  persecutions  have  found 
place,  and  more  bloody  battles  have  been  fought  than  from 
all  other  causes  put  together.  And  were  it  not  for  the 
firm  hand  civilization  lays  upon  religion,  we  should  still 
be  enjoying  as  aids  to  proselyting  the  rack  and  thumb 
screw,  chains  and  dungeons,  autos-da-fe  and  inquisitions. 
For  religion  is  ever  coercive  up  to  the  limits  of  its  capa 
bilities. 

At  once,  upon  the  very  threshold  of  sane  investigation 
we  encounter  an  obstacle  which  with  the  greatest  difficulty 
is  overcome  and  seldom  entirely  eradicated.  Blind  belief, 
a  huge  monster,  stands  insolently  staring  us  in  the  face, 
to  whom  we  must  pay  tribute  before  proceeding  farther. 
Whatever  may  have  been  our  early  training,  whether  as 
Parsee  Christian  or  Confucian,  it  was  then  implanted 
upon  our  plastic  mind  the  necessity  of  accepting  as  truth 
whatever  our  parents  or  teachers  told  us  was  true  under 
penalty  of  punishment  here  and  eternal  torment  hereafter. 
Thus  a  variety  of  ineradicable  and  all-devouring  convic 
tions  arose  among  the  nations,  and  flourished  through  suc 
ceeding  generations,  as  to  the  reality  of  ancient  myths 
and  superstitions,  all  equally  false,  but  for  the  veracity 
of  which  each  was  ready  himself  to  die,  or  to  kill  any  who 


374  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

thought  differently.  And  in  spirit  such  conditions  so  re 
main  to  this  day. 

With  a  mind  cleared  from  tradition  and  superstition 
it  is  not  difficult  to  trace  from  cause  to  effect  the  devious 
ways  of  a  thousand  religions,  and  plainly  to  perceive  the 
origin  and  nature  of  the  fetters  of  belief  which  bind  the 
spiritual  nature  of  man  to  a  supernatural  being.  Where 
fore,  without  speculation  or  propaganda,  may  we  not  con 
sider  this  matter  for  a  moment  from  the  view-point  of 
palpable  fact? 

We  find  ourselves  marooned  upon  a  speck  of  sand  in 
the  midst  of  innumerable  worlds  whirling  through  limit 
less  space.  So  far  we  are  conscious.  And  struggle  we 
never  so  wildly  we  can  get  no  farther.  Fill  the  earth  with 
our  cries  and  the  heavens  with  airy  speculations  and  no 
answer  comes  to  an  inquiry  of  whence  and  whither. 

The  new  religion  should  be  one  which  helps  man  to 
live  rather  than  to  die,  in  which  latter  adventure  he  indeed 
requires  no  help. 

Before  Buddha  Christ  or  Mohammed,  before  Moses  and 
the  prophets,  before  Manu  son  of  Brahma  were  the  ape- 
man,  and  the  half-man,  and  the  primitive  wild  man  all 
gathering  material,  making  myths,  and  laying  broad  the 
superstructure  upon  which  all  nations  have  established 
their  faith,  and  built  their  hopes  of  a  future  state  of  re 
wards  and  punishments. 

One  only  proposition  it  is  necessary  to  propound  to 
the  founders  or  supporters  of  any  or  all  religions.  Let 
them  truthfully  answer  that  and  all  is  answered.  What 
has  your  religion  done  for  the  race;  are  its  accomplish 
ments  up  to  its  teachings?  It  will  not  do  to  credit  your 
cult  with  the  natural  results  of  evolution.  If  you  read 
your  history  aright  you  are  forced  to  admit  that  civili 
zation  is  and  always  has  been  the  primary  factor  in  the 
redemption  of  man,  curbing  religion  in  the  cruelties  and 
injustice  which  have  ever  marked  its  progress.  Chris 
tianity,  the  religion  of  brotherhood  and  love,  is  to  this  day 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  375 

the  most  relentless  in  its  hate;  Christians,  themselves  per 
secuted  at  first,  became  the  cruelest  and  bloodiest  perse 
cutors  the  world  has  ever  produced.  Good  Queen  Isabella, 
one  single  example,  see  her  with  her  Torquemada,  her 
torture  chambers  and  her  autos-da-fe,  driving  out  the 
Moors,  killing  Jews,  and  converting  Indians  with  fire  and 
sword. 

The  progress  of  religion  follows  the  natural  law.  Orig 
inating  a  crude  conception  in  the  wild  man's  brain,  in 
all  its  long  journey  from  its  sylvan  cradle  to  the  city 
cathedral  it  never  rises  superior  to  its  environment.  It  is 
a  created  rather  than  a  creative  force.  It  is  a  flame  which 
burns  only  as  long  as  it  is  fed. 

Born  of  fear  it  fears  always;  remove  the  fear  and  it 
disappears.  It  cannot  live  on  love;  love  plays  no  part  in 
its  endurance.  Love  is  an  abstraction;  to  love  an  imag 
inary  thing  is  to  make  an  imaginary  thing  of  love.  Love 
is  a  free  and  independent  entity,  and  comes  not  at  the  fiat 
even  of  the  Almighty.  Neither  love  nor  hate  has  any  part 
in  binding  the  spiritual  in  man  to  the  supernatural;  only 
fear  is  dominant,  fear  of  injury,  or  of  loss, — that  and  the 
desire  of  gain. 

The  command  to  love  God  under  penalty  for  failure 
of  severe  punishment  is  impracticable.  Love  is  not  an 
article  subject  to  the  command  of  either  gods  or  men. 
Above  all,  how  force  a  free  intelligent  being  to  love  an 
airy  and  impalpable  abstraction,  a  shadowy  spirit,  born 
of  the  imagination  and  fashioned  after  his  own  faulty  self. 
What  is  love?  A  complex  emotion.  It  is  easy  to  say  we 
love,  if  thereby  we  may  escape  the  threatened  punishment. 

The  truth  is  we  are  still  in  bondage  to  fear  and  depen 
dence  from  which  the  soul  must  find  release.  We  are  as 
much  the  slaves  of  superstition  as  ever  were  the  naked 
savages  of  the  woods.  We  dare  not  say  that  God  is  the 
author  of  evil;  we  fear  that  punishment  would  come  from 
such  temerity.  We  must  not  so  believe,  yet  we  must  believe 


376  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

that  God  is  the  author  of  all  things.  All  the  same  the 
remnant  of  the  dark  days  of  primitive  fear  and  trembling 
is  passing;  the  remnant  of  the  days  of  dread  and  perse 
cution  for  opinion's  sake  is  passing;  the  remnant  of  a 
religion  founded  on  the  fantastic  tales  of  insensate  igno 
rance,  of  wonderful  sights  never  seen,  of  voices  never 
heard,  is  passing. 

It  were  less  difficult,  however,  to  tell  what  will  not  be 
than  what  it  will  be.  Whatever  may  be  the  new  religion 
if  ever  there  is  one,  we  may  be  sure  that  it  will  not  be 
a  repetition  of  what  has  been  during  the  past  6,000  years. 
It  will  be  no  one  of  the  cults  existing  in  the  world  at  the 
present  time.  For  were  there  one  sufficiently  strong  for 
universal  domination  it  would  long  since  have  taken  its 
proper  place  and  now  stand  alone.  Buddhism  the  largest 
in  number  will  never  be  larger,  and  Christianity  has  proved 
pretty  conclusively  that  it  is  not  possible  for  it  to  eradicate 
all  other  forms  of  belief  as  has  been  promised,  if  indeed 
it  will  be  long- able  to  hold  its  own. 

Innumerable  doctrines  with  endless  symbolic  rites  have 
been  formulated  from  the  attempts  to  interpret  the  unex 
plained  phenomena  of  nature  and  a  hypothetical  spirit 
realm.  To  this  end  the  vain  imaginings  of  savages  have 
been  reduced  to  concrete  symbols  until  they  became  the 
essentials  of  belief. 

For  all  that  it  seems  plain  that  there  is  no  theory  of 
the  supernatural,  no  cult  or  creed  which  ever  has  been  or 
can  be  devised  by  man  that  will  satisfy  modern  thought 
and  intelligence. 

If  knowledge  goes  on  increasing  in  the  future  as  in 
the  past  we  may  come  to  know  something  of  our  origin 
and  destination.  As  it  is  now  we  know  nothing,  and  see 
no  way  open  to  know.  Which  being  the  case  it  is  as  irrele 
vant  and  impertinent  to  affirm  as  to  deny,  to  assert  dog 
matically  the  existence  of  an  intelligent  first  cause  as  to 
decline  doing  so.  Wherefore  of  all  cults  and  crudities, 
from  first  to  last,  pagan  or  Christian,  that  alone  can  truth- 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  377 

fully  and  logically  stand  the  test  of  common-sense  which 
finds  expression  in  the  words  of  the  agnostic,  I  do  not  know. 

Why  is  reason  given  us  if  not  to  use?  The  same  may 
be  said  of  feeling,  one  might  answer,  of  consciousness,  of 
sensibility.  But  reason  gives  an  account  of  itself  whereas 
feeling  is  simply  a  sentiment  or  sensation. 

Without  God  as  creator  and  regulator  of  the  cosmos 
we  are  told  existence  here  is  irrational;  yet  the  deity  we 
make  for  ourselves  is  still  more  irrational. 

From  some  remarkable  occurrence  brought  forward 
from  the  mythological  past,  modified  and  fitted  to  the 
popular  imagination,  ancient  legends  are  wrought  into 
veritable  stories  upon  which  a  nation  hangs  its  hopes  of 
protection  in  this  life  and  eternal  happiness  in  a  life  to 
come. 

Were  it  possible  another  story  book  of  spirits,  oJ  angels 
and  demons,  books  of  legerdemain,  of  miracles  and  mys 
teries,  one  in  which  we  of  the  present  day  might  see  the 
truth  and  accept  as  sacred,  be  it  Veda  Bible  or  Koran, 
let  us  have  it,  and  we  will  -bow  our  heads  for  another  two 
thousand  or  ten  thousand  years  and  wait  though  millions 
of  souls  meanwhile  perish. 

If  so  be  a  course  of  conduct  can  be  made  to  appear; 
if  so  be  we  can  have  a  religion  that  will  teach  us  how  to 
live,  we  shall  require  no  priest  at  our  bedside  to  teach 
us  how  to  die.  Nor  are  we  taught  better  how  to  live  by 
sounding  murky  depths  with  the  German  psychologist, 
who  would  establish  a  government  of  God  on  earth  in 
the  person  of  his  kaiser  and  his  kultur. 

Religion  is  in  no  sense  an  initiative  energy;  it  is  the 
creature  not  the  creator  of  culture,  of  civilization.  Set 
ting  forth  on  its  career  with  unsavory  customs  and  hor 
rible  rites,  with  lewd  festivals  and  human  sacrifice,  with 
slavery,  polygamy,  and  every  form  of  cruelty  and  tyranny 
unchecked,  it  never  relinquishes  its  hold  on  humanity  until 
forced  into  better  behavior  by  its  victims.  Even  after 
having  accepted  the  Christ,  and  while  pretending  to  fol- 


378  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

low  his  divine  precepts  the  Christians  were  no  better  than 
others  only  as  advanced  civilization  forced  them  one  after 
another  to  drop  their  infamies. 

In  proof  of  this  many  cases  might  be  cited  occurring 
not  only  during  the  medievalism  of  early  Christianity  and 
the  Dark  Ages,  but  nearer  home  and  reaching  down  to 
the  present  time.  For  example,  from  such  imperfect  means 
of  measurement  of  relative  cults  and  cultures  as  are  at 
our  command  we  should  place  the  Israelites  at  the  time 
of  their  exodus  from  Egypt  about  on  an  equality  with 
the  lower  grade  of  the  North  American  Indians,  and  far 
below  the  indigenous  civilization  of  the  Nahua  nations 
of  Mexico  or  the  Peruvians  of  the  south.  And  though  we 
regard  with  horror  the  annual  sacrifice  of  sixty  youths  to 
the  Aztec  war  god,  we  have  become  so  accustomed  to  the 
present  medievalism  of  murder  as  to  read  with  serenity 
over  our  morning  coffee  of  the  millions  of  Europe's  fairest 
manhood  sacrificed  to  the  German  war  god. 

With  serenity,  however,  we  cannot  yet  read  of  the 
million  fathers  suffering  agonies  for  the  loss  of  sons  in 
senseless  butcheries,  which  the  father  of  our  Lord  Christ 
could  stop  at  any  moment  if  he  would,  or  of  the  many 
million  homes  of  rich  and  poor  alike  where  mothers  are 
pleading  with  their  God  over  the  sufferings  and  death 
of  their  little  ones  whom  they  are  powerless  to  save. 

The  espousal  of  any  new  cult  or  culture  in  the  present 
state  of  human  progress  involves  a  question  of  surrender; 
if  of  faith  a  surrender  of  reason,  if  of  reason  a  surrender 
of  faith.  Faith  and  reason  do  not  assimilate.  They  are 
as  far  apart  as  instinct  and  intelligence;  while  the  latter 
advances  the  former  remains  fixed. 

In  the  sense  of  a  belief  binding  the  spiritual  nature 
of  man — if  so  be  man  has  a  spiritual  nature — to  a  super 
natural  being,  religion  is  doomed.  The  reign  of  ghosts 
is  doomed.  The  meaningless  mummeries  attending  wor 
ship,  the  genuflections  and  ridiculous  parade  of  ritual 
brought  down  from  pagan  times  will  not  forever  captivate 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  379 

the  senses,  rule  the  heart,  or  convince  the  mind.  And  as 
for  the  fruits  of  Christ's  teachings,  by  which  he  said  we 
were  to  know  them,  now  after  2,000  years  of  Christian 
contentions,  of  wars  and  cruelties  never  before  surpassed, 
we  find  the  German  kaiser  in  his  devil's  work  uprooting 
all  forms  of  belief  in  men's  hearts  as  well  as  in  unholy 
vandalism  demolishing  the  churches.  For  all  the  while  the 
wails  of  women  and  pompous  prayers  from  the  Vatican 
avail  nothing. 

If  religion  of  some  sort  is  essential  to  man's  nature, 
it  must  be  first  of  all  something  that  appeals  to  his  reason, 
and  not  alone  to  the  imagination.  The  mysteries  and 
mythologies  of  the  primitive  past,  of  the  dark  ages  of 
crass  ignorance,  beastiality  and  superstition  are  no  longer 
satisfying  to  the  advanced  soul  upon  which  to  rest  a  hope 
of  eternal  life  and  happiness. 

The  very  word  religion  should  be  eradicated  from  our 
vocabulary,  or  its  definition  changed  from  a  belief,  which 
is  not  belief  but  empty  assertion,  binding  the  spiritual 
nature  of  man  to  a  senseless  system  of  faith  and  worship, 
and  made  to  apply  to  something  more  real  and  tangible. 

The  religion  of  the  future  will  consist  in  living  rather 
than  in  believing ;  and  for  lack  of  a  supernatural  being  in 
whom  to  exercise  faith,  and  for  worship,  we  will  have  the 
natural  being,  man,  whom  Christ  came  to  seek  and  to  save 
and  did  not,  the  human  element  ever  present  with  us,  and 
much  more  worthy  of  our  consideration  than  so  much 
fantastic  imagery.  "We  want  a  religion  of  deeds  rather 
than  one  of  empty  words. 

Long  ago  Socinianism  was  preached  in  Italy,  denying 
natural  depravity,  eternal  punishment,  personality  of  the 
devil,  the  trinity,  and  vicarious  atonement,  thus  sweeping 
away  half  of  the  more  important  doctrines  of  the  church, 
never  again  to  be  revived  in  their  former  strength.  So 
with  regard  to  transubstantiation  and  the  infallibility  of 
the  pope;  few  really  believe  in  these  and  like  miraculous 
phenomena,  though  many  may  think  they  do. 


380  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

The  ethics  of  Islamism,  like  the  ethics  of  Christianism. 
are  of  the  highest  order,  as  they  claim,  each  the  only  true 
religion  coming  direct  from  God,  and  in  point  of  time 
one  with  the  creation.  To  each  of  us  the  only  true  lessons 
of  life  are  the  lessons  taught  us  in  our  childhood,  lessons 
of  love,  of  adoration  and  emulation,  lessons  of  charity  and 
self-denial  which  fall  on  us  like  shining  lights  from  heaven. 

We  want  a  religion  which  will  first  of  all  clear  the  air 
of  ghosts  and  spirits,  good  or  bad,  clear  our  minds  of 
the  lies  we  have  been  taught  to  regard  as  sacred  truths, 
clear  our  hearts  of  the  evil  in  which  they  are  steeped,  and 
open  our  eyes  to  the  bright  and  beautiful  world  around 
us,  where  we  can  make  a  heaven  for  ourselves  if  we  will. 

The  coming  religion  must  be  an  honest  one,  honest 
and  truthful.  It  should  limit  itself  in  some  proper  degree 
to  the  affairs  of  this  life  rather  than  to  those  of  another 
life ;  it  should  confine  itself  within  the  realm  of  the  know- 
able  rather  than  wander  in  a  wilderness  of  speculation, 
for  speculation  is  not  religion.  Proselyting,  particularly 
if  attended  by  any  form  of  coercion  should  be  given  up. 

Again  we  may  say,  alas  for  the  gullibility  of  mankind, 
and  for  the  hypocrisy  of  those  self-constituted  teachers 
who  promulgate  what  they  know  to  be  false  rather  than 
admit  that  they  know  nothing! 

To  ignorance  and  indifference,  of  which  the  world  is 
full,  the  appeal  to  the  imagination  is  stronger  and  more 
enduring  than  an  appeal  to  reason.  It  shows  the  tenacity 
with  which  the  occult  and  ancient  clings  to  the  under 
standing  long  after  any  attempt  at  understanding  is  aban 
doned. 

To  the  Buddhist  the  Christian  faith  is  as  unbelievable 
as  is  the  Buddhist  religion  to  the  Christian,  and  to  attempt 
his  conversion  to  Christianity  is  as  ridiculous  in  his  eyes 
as  would  be  the  attempt  to  convert  the  Christian  to  Budd 
hism  in  the  eyes  of  the  Christian. 

As  easily  as  did  Wodan  or  the  Buddha,  Christ  Mo- 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  381 

hammed  or  Joe  Smith  assume  godship,  so  might  have  done 
Confucius,  Mrs  Eddy,  and  many  others  had  they  been  so 
disposed,  and  with  a  little  legerdemain  for  miracles  have 
been  sustained  as  the  incarnation  of  supreme  holiness  by  a 
large  following. 

The  Mohammedans  must  have  their  messiah,  of  course, 
Mahdi  they  call  him,  and  like  the  messiah  of  the  Jews  he 
is  yet  to  come.  Many  have  claimed  to  be  he,  notably  Mo 
hammed  Ahmed  and  Khalifa  Abdallah  Es  Sayed. 

"What  was  the  cause  of  the  rapid  spread  of  Islam? 
What  is  the  cause  of  the  rapid  spread  of  any  religion, 
if  it  is  not  from  the  promises  it  makes  of  what  its  votaries 
most  covet? 

Islam  spread  rapidly  in  the  face  of  Christianism  be 
cause  it  appealed  to  the  lower  order  of  civilization  as  dis 
played  by  the  Mohammedans. 

False  prophets  and  false  preaching  should  be  sup 
pressed  ;  for  still  are  shouted  every  Sunday  from  ten  thou 
sand  orthodox  pulpits  the  superstitions  of  millenniums  ago, 
the  drowsy  occupants  of  the  pews  with  however  alert  in 
telligence  waking  up  at  the  end  sufficiently  to  pass  the 
contribution  plate.  The  time  has  come  when  intelligent 
church  goers  want  something  more  for  the  soul's  satis 
faction  than  the  dronings  from  the  pulpit  of  old  saws  and 
stale  sentiments  from  the  liturgies  of  medievalism. 

Nor  does  it  longer  satisfy  us,  the  old-time  excuse,  "We 
cannot  understand  God's  ways,  he  who  sees  the  end  from 
the  beginning,  we  can  only  trust  and  believe  and  wait." 
That  is  trust  the  crude  absurdities  of  the  dark  ages,  believe 
in  ghost  stories,  and  wait  until  a  million  more  hells  are 
peopled  with  innocent  victims. 

To  lapse  into  a  state  of  negation,  of  general  denial,  or 
even  to  rest  content  with  angnosticism  does  not  seem  to 
be  the  most  pleasant  or  profitable  of  what  existence  here 
should  be;  but  this  is  better  than  pretense,  than  clerical 
charlatanry,  for  who  shall  say  how  much  of  what  he 
preaches  the  priest  believes  to  be  true? 


382  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

Suppose  in  our  new  religion,  in  place  of  so  much  love 
and  adoration  of  an  abstraction,  so  many  laws  and  regu 
lations  ill-fitting  our  nature,  so  many  prophecies  and  reve 
lations,  so  many  miracles  and  marvels,  so  many  such 
achievements  as  immaculate  conceptions,  making  wine  of 
water,  and  the  like  we  infused  in  our  dealings,  social  and 
commercial,  a  little  more  honesty;  in  our  professions  of 
piety  a  little  less  cant  and  hypocrisy;  in  our  politics  a 
little  patriotism  and  a  good  deal  less  lying  cheating  and 
chicanery  would  it  not  be  an  improvement? 

The  test  of  unreason  cannot  withstand  the  truth  forever. 
Repudiate  the  divine  authorship  of  evil  if  you  like,  but 
what  will  you  do  with  the  facts? 

Knowing  beforehand  that  his  commands  would  be 
broken,  that  his  creatures  were  so  constructed  that  any 
otherwise  were  impossible,  yef  the  Almighty  gave  the  com 
mands,  with  the  unjust  penalty  that  endless  torment  should 
be  the  lot  of  millions  for  the  inevitable  act  of  a  single  per 
son  on  whom  was  played  this  direful  trick  of  omnipotence. 

Never  yet  has  there  lived  a  man  burdened  by  the  nat 
ural  passions  implanted  by  the  creator,  who  has  not  broken 
every  command  of  the  creator,  the  Almighty  knowing  that 
such  would  be  the  case  beforehand,  as  witness  murder,  adul 
tery,  lying,  hate,  revenge,  and  the  rest. 

Closing  their  eyes  to  the  truth  teachers  and  preachers 
prate  on,  God  cannot  be  the  author  of  evil ;  he  doeth  all 
things  well;  like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children  the  Lord 
pitieth  us.  Yet  he  made  all  mankind  wicked,  Israel  as  bad 
as  any,  but  Israel,  his  chosen  people,  he  sought  to  save, 
visiting  dire  destruction  upon  all  others,  with  no  hope 
in  them  of  escape.  In  his  loving-kindness  he  implants 
poison  in  the  hearts  of  his  first  creation,  implants  the  prin 
ciple  of  evil,  knowing  beforehand  in  his  omniscience  that 
it  will  accomplish  their  destruction,  and  the  damnation 
of  the  entire  human  race.  This  in  his  infinite  justice ;  and 
though  unchangeable,  we  are  told  that  he  becomes  dissat 
isfied  with  his  creation,  and  exclaims  "I  repent  me  that 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  383 

I  made  man,"  and  straightway  goes  about  to  destroy  him. 

The  God  of  the  Jews  and  Christians  is  impossible  as 
formulated  by  Moses  and  Christ,  and  by  the  prophets  and 
psalmists  intervening,  the  alleged  sacred  record  passed 
upon  and  accepted  as  the  veritable  word  of  God  by  a  com 
mittee  of  theologians  under  the  auspices  of  King  James 
of  England,  and  preached  in  the  orthodox  pulpits  of 
Christendom  at  the  present  time.  Yet  surely  these  august 
judges  of  inspiration  and  divinity  must  have  seen  that 
there  is  not  a  single  attribute  bestowed  upon  the  God  of 
Israel  by  his  votaries  that  is  not  denied  many  times  in 
the  scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  government  by  God  as  God  is 
created,  and  his  government  interpreted  by  man  is  not 
altogether  perfect  even  if  professors  and  preachers  assert 
the  contrary  while  reciting  the  imperfections  and  attempt 
ing  to  excuse  them. 

The  new  religion  must  be  one  of  substance  and  not 
of  shadow,  of  fact  and  not  altogether  of  fancy;  a  religion 
not  founded  on  ghosts  and  ghostly  stories  such  as  are  used 
to  frighten  children,  of  wine-making  miracles,  trinities  and 
immaculate  conceptions. 

Your  actual  true  religionist  is  an  actual  true  nonentity, 
still  ruled  by  blind  fear  and  the  promise  of  brilliant  com 
pensation.  Without  care,  with  no  trouble  over  proof  or 
evidence  he  may  simply  say  credo,  accept  what  he  is  told 
to  accept,  what  ancient  naked  superstition  has  told  his 
teachers  to  accept,  under  penalty  of  punishment  here  and 
eternal  torment  hereafter,  and  the  thing  is  done.  He  may 
be  the  vilest  of  the  vile,  as  ruhtless  a  murderer  as  the 
German  kaiser,  yet  he  is  safe. 

"The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart  there  is  no  God." 
Granted.  But  is  he  not  equally  a  fool  who  asserts  know 
ing  nothing  as  he  who  denies  knowing  nothing?  "Better 
believe  in  ghosts  than  abandon  the  spiritual,"  say  eminent 
divines,  who  talk  much  but  teach  us  nothing.  Be  it  so; 
everyone  to  one 's  taste ;  for  myself  I  prefer  truth  to  inven- 


384  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

tion.  It  is  a  wicked  lie  to  say  he  is  an  atheist  who  cannot 
accept  the  impossible  deity  concocted  by  the  Jews  and 
Christians,  any  more  than  he  can  accept  the  impossible 
deities  concocted  by  the  Hindus  and  Chinese,  who  lived 
ages  before  their  competitors  and  should  know  as  much 
of  the  unknowable  as  they. 

What  is  belief?  Opinon,  you  will  say,  mental  assent, 
rational  conviction.  Can  there  be  belief,  rational  convic 
tion  without  evidence?  I  cannot  see  how.  Man  is  given 
his  mind  for  use,  not  for  ornament,  and  in  the  ordinary 
affairs  of  life  he  is  accounted  a  fool  who  does  not  use  it. 
And  yet  in  the  most  momentous  issue  attending  his  exist 
ence  he  is  thrown  upon  a  blind  belief,  or  so-called  belief, — 
mental  assertion  or  assent  if  nothing  more  tangible  can 
be  produced, — as  the  only  deliverance  from  eternal  torment. 

"I  believe  in  God  the  father  maker  of  heaven  and 
earth,"  repeats  the  seeker  after  salvation.  Why?  "I  feel 
it  in  my  soul,  in  my  inner  consciousness;  God  through  his 
holy  spirit  speaks  to  me  and  my  heart  responds."  Very 
good,  if  such  evidence  or  blind  assertion  is  sufficient  to 
determine  the  future,  whether  throughout  endless  ages 
there  is  to  be  happiness  or  misery,  why  not  employ  it  in 
your  every  day  life  where  such  an  attitude  would  be 
laughed  to  scorn? 

Yet  with  all  our  repudiation  of  the  myths  and  fables 
concocted  during  the  dark  days  of  ignorance  and  attached 
to  worship  there  to  be  retained  to  the  present  time,  we 
still  find  ourselves  standing  alone  in  the  midst  of  a  vast 
universe  of  wonderful  creations,  equally  lost  in  awe  and 
admiration  whether  regarded  as  the  work  of  an  omniscient 
designer  or  the  evolution  of  blind  physical  force. 

To  make  a  perfect  creator  all  that  was  good  in  all  pre 
vious  gods  was  utilized,  but  the  work  was  so  bunglingly 
done  as  to  be  full  of  impossibilities  and  contradictions. 
Christ  says  love  your  enemies.  God  says  I  love  those  that 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  385 

love  me,  and  I  hate  those  who  hate  me.  To  make  a  per 
fect  creator  required  a  perfect  man  for  a  model. 

Why  of  all  religions  Christianity  is  the  most  irrational 
and  illogical  is  partly  because  it  is  made  up  from  so  many 
other  religions,  and  because  such  a  large  part  of  it  must 
be  accepted  by  faith  or  not  at  all.  There  are  those  who  say 
it  is  not  necessary  to  pray  to  a  merciful,  just  God,  beseech 
ing  him  to  be  kind  and  do  right,  for  this  he  will  do  of 
his  own  accord,  else  he  is  not  good  righteous  and  just;  so 
the  pagan  prays  to  his  evil  deities  to  placate  them,  and  for 
every  town  he  has  a  tutelar  divinity. 

As  it  is  now  what  have  we  to  feed  on?  Husks  which 
do  not  satisfy  even  our  swinish  cravings ;  stuff  we  are  told 
we  must  accept  and  believe  to  be  true  under  pain  of  eternal 
torment.  Christianity  is  now  challenged  to  show  on  what 
ground  it  can  claim  the  further  allegiance  of  rational 
beings. 

Orthodox  Christianity  has  too  many  unsafe  tenets  upon 
which  to  found  a  permanent  church.  Sooner  or  later  they 
must  give  way,  as  many  of  them  have  already  given  way. 

"I  know  that  my  redeemer  liveth"  says  one.  You  are 
fortunate.  How  do  you  know,  and  from  what  redeemed? 

"By  faith,  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen;  my  heart 
and  inner  consciousness  affirm  my  redemption  from  sin." 

And  how  about  the  many  millions  who  have  not  that 
inner  conviction,  or  who  have  been  sent  to  perdition  never 
having  heard  of  your  redeemer  ? 

What  is  God?  "God  is  a  spirit,  infinite,  eternal,  un 
changeable,  in  his  being  wisdom  power  holiness  justice 
goodness  and  truth."  Qualities  scarcely  sustained  by  the 
evidence.  Then  comes  the  most  diabolical  doctrine  of  the 
church.  "God  having,  out  of  his  mere  good  pleasure, 
elected  some  to  everlasting  life/'  the  rest  are  consigned 
without  cause  to  endless  torment.  And  scarcely  in  accord 
with  the  teachings  of  Christ  is  the  complacency  with  which 
the  elect  sitting  by  an  open  window  in  heaven  regard  the 
torments  of  the  damned  in  hell. 

13 


386  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

What  is  soul?  The  question  has  never  been  answered, 
or,  rather,  it  is  too  much  answered.  We  do  not  know 
what  it  is.  We  do  not  what  we  ourselves  mean  when  we 
speak  of  it.  Soul  comes  with  consciousness  and  goes  out 
with  unconsciousness.  When  it  first  appears  we  are  half- 
man ;  when  it  disappears  we  are  no  man.  Conventions  have 
been  held  to  solve  the  mystery.  Shortly  after  the  conquest 
of  America  a  convention  of  church  dignitaries  was  held 
in  Spain  to  pass  upon  the  question  whether-  or  not  the 
Indians  had  souls.  The  learned  ecclesiastics  had  their 
own  interpretation  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  word,  and 
also  as  to  the  possession  of  the  article  by  the  brute  cre 
ation.  They  concluded  that  the  Indians  had  souls,  though 
how  they  ascertained  the  fact  is  not  stated.  It  may  be 
that  their  decision  was  influenced  somewhat  by  certain  col 
lateral  facts,  as  that  in  case  of  the  declaration  that  the 
Indians  belonged  to  the  brute  creation  the  females  could 
not  be  used  as  mistresses  by  the  conquerors,  nor  the  people 
at  large  for  conversion  by  the  priests. 

It  is  plain  enough  to  all  who  wish  to  see  that  neither  the 
governments  nor  the  religions,  in  any  of  their  various 
forms  and  purposes  which  humanity  thus  far  has  adopted, 
have  accomplished  the  end  for  which  they  were  created,  and 
that  new  governments  and  new  religions  must  be  invented 
and  carried  into  execution  before  man  can  go  forward  to 
the  full  accomplishment  of  his  high  destiny. 

Even  now  in  Europe  we  see  what  may  be  the  beginning 
of  the  end,  participation  in  which  may  ere  long  be  the  lot 
of  America.  On  every  count  religion  has  failed  to  carry 
out  its  promises  or  accomplish  its  purposes,  while  the  ab 
surdity,  not  to  say  the  enormity,  of  inherited  rulership, 
kingship  by  divine  right  is  felt  more  and  more,  and  we  may 
rest  assured  that  the  system  is  doomed. 

We  are  in  bondage  to  sin,  they  sa}^,  not  our  own  sin  but 
Adam's  sin.  Now  Adam  did  not  sin;  he  did  what  his 
maker  made  him  do ;  or  even  were  it  so,  how  could  we  sin,  or 
commit  any  overt  act  prior  to  our  existence?  Yet  with  the 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  387 

subtle  serpent,  and  the  woman,  and  the  man  we  stand  ac 
cursed. 

All  along  the  centuries  the  struggle  continues  to  justify 
the  creator  by  reconciling  the  existence  of  evil  with  the 
alleged  power  and  goodness  of  God  but  without  success. 
Either  the  Bible  is  true  or  it  is  not.  -Theologians  say  that 
it  is  true,  and  then  try  to  overthrow  such  parts  of  it  as  do 
not  fit  their  theories. 

A  God  of  infinite  power,  the  author  of  all,  is  subordi 
nated  to  evils  and  evil  beings  of  his  own  creation,  and  in  the 
contentions  which  follow,  under  the  influence  of  the  basest 
passions  becomes  a  demon  of  cruelty,  revenge,  and  in 
justice,  to  which  his  devotees  feel  constrained  from  fear 
to  blind  their  eyes  and  see  in  him  only  holiness  justice  lov 
ing-kindness  and  truth.  And  this  while  a  world  in  agony 
lies  waiting,  hoping,  trying  for  their  soul's  eternal  rest 
to  believe  what  they  are  told  to  believe  even  though  they 
know  it  cannot  be  true. 

Looking  at  it  from  any  point  of  view  we  may  and  it 
is  equally  unthinkable,  this  universe  the  work  of  a  creator 
such  as  religionists  invent,  or  blind  chance  as  in  the  evolu 
tion  of  matter. 

In  the  form  of  prayer  Christ  gives  us  in  which  to  sup 
plicate  the  father,  it  says,  *  *  Forgive  us  our  trespasses  as  we 
forgive  those  that  trespass  against  us,  and  lead  us  not  into 
temptation."  Would  God  then  otherwise  entrap  us  as 
he  did  Adam  and  Pharoah?  And  if  we  are  forgiven  only 
as  we  forgive,  how  many  would  see  salvation?  Wherefore 
we  are  constrained  to  hold  opinion  that  of  all  the  gods 
ever  emanating  from  human  conceptions,  the  deity  en 
throned  by  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  theodicy  is  the  most 
involved  and  contradictory,  being  a  bundle  of  antagonistic 
elements  the  fruits  of  which  seem  to  be  more  disastrous 
than  open  devil-worship. 

Jesus  as  an  eternal  force  still  lives,  but  Christ  as  in- 


388  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

carnated  truth  and  holiness,  a  recreator  of  mankind,  failed 
in  the  accomplishment  of  his  mission. 

How  many  of  his  pretensions  were  made  good;  how 
many  of  his  promises  were  kept  ?  A  prodigy  perhaps,  ever 
exhorting  his  followers  to  achieve  the  impossible,  it  was 
easy  to  fabricate  the  story  of  his  birth  and  parentage,  and 
attribute  to  him  as  miracles  some  of  the  legerdemain  of  the 
day. 

How  many  of  the  precepts  of  Christ  it  is  impossible  for 
man  to  obey.  Is  it  kind,  or  considerate,  or  wise,  to  make 
such  demands  ?  Love  your  enemies,  Christ  says.  Does  God 
do  that  ?  Never  since  Christ  came  has  a  single  person  ever 
lived  up  to  his  teachings ;  then  what  is  the  use  of  such  teach 
ing?  However  illogical  and  beyond  human  experience,  we 
still  cling  to  the  hope  of  life  everlasting,  that  is  to  say 
those  of  us  who  desire  it,  and  that  is  all  mankind  with  a 
few  exceptions. 

"My  peace  I  leave  with  you."  The  peace  of  Belgium. 
"Forgive  as  you  would  be  forgiven."  Then  never  was 
yet  one  forgiven.  ' '  Do  as  you  would  be  done  by. ' '  Under 
the  economy  of  God  such  an  order  is  absurd,  as  is  also 
the  command,  "take  no  thought  for  your  life,"  and  scores 
of  other  injunctions  impossible  except  for  a  different  order 
of  beings  from  poor  weak  imperfect  man. 

Such  a  religion  can  scarcely  endure  forever. 

What  then  has  Christianity  to  rest  upon  as  a  ground 
work  for  belief? 

Let  us  go  over  the  whole  situation  and  sum  it  up. 

Theorem :  The  God  of  the  scriptures  is  not  the  God  of 
their  interpretation. 

We  find  before  us  the  holy  book  of  the  orthodox  church, 
the  Bible,  the  sacred  scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Test 
aments,  written  by  inspired  men,  and  revised  and  accepted 
by  a  commission  under  King  James  of  England. 

With  this  book  the  church  tells  the  people  what  they  are 
to  do  and  to  believe. 

Answering  the  question,  What  is  God?  we  are  told  that 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  389 

God  is  a  spirit,  infinite,  eternal,  in  his  being  wisdom  power, 
holiness,  justice,  goodness,  and  truth. 

What  rule  hath  God  given  for  our  direction  ?  The  word 
of  God  as  contained  in  the  scriptures  is  the  only  rule  given 
us. 

Here,  then,  is  the  whole  proposition;  we  have  simply 
to  consult  the  record  for  our  full  enlightenment. 

Turning  to  the  sacred  volume  we  find  that  in  six  days 
God  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth,  and  all  things 
therein;  that  at  the  time  of  creation  all  was  dark,  so  he 
made  the  sun  moon  and  stars,  and  light,  and  all  was  very 
good.  He  made  man,  male  and  female,  placed  them  in  a 
garden,  and  gave  them  dominion  over  all  his  works,  with 
one  restriction. 

This  first  pair  were  unsophisticated  and  pure.  They 
knew  no  evil,  knew  not  evil  from  good.  For  so  God  had 
made  them,  and  designedly,  for  God  does  nothing  without 
design. 

Omnipotent,  omniscient,  all-powerful,  all-knowing,  God 
knew  beforehand  that  this  first  pair  would  break  his  only 
command,  and  that  he  would  curse  them  for  it,  curse  them 
for  doing  that  for  which  he  had  made  them,  and  which  they 
were  powerless  to  resist.  God  knew  and  foreordained  all 
this,  else  he  was  not  the  Lord  God  of  the  scriptures. 

God  also  predestinated  that  for  this  sinless  sin  of  Adam 
he  would  curse  his  innocent  posterity,  establish  a  world  of 
woe,  and  finally  consign  the  inhabitants  to  a  hell  of  endless 
torment.  So  he  introduced  into  the  garden  in  the  form 
of  a  serpent,  the  spirit  of  evil,  a  thing  of  his  own  creation 
as  he  created  all  things,  and  the  result  was  as  he  had 
previously  determined  it  should  be.  The  man  and  woman 
fell  into  the  trap;  they  and  their  posterity  were  cursed 
in  consequence,  the  result  being  a  short  shift  of  a  world 
wailing  in  misery  followed  by  an  eternity  of  hell. 

Here  was  the  first  great  mistake  of  Moses,  as  before 
indicated,  in  not  bringing  forward  from  somewhere  a  veri 
table  devil  to  combat  what  he  might  then  have  sustained  as 


390  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

the  righteous  efforts  of  a  benevolent  being  to  save  his 
people.  Instead  of  which  he  leaves  his  God  of  love  and 
holiness  a  monster  of  cruelty  and  injustice,  a  character 
sustained  not  only  throughout  that  portion  of  the  scrip 
tures  written  by  Moses,  but  by  all  the  inspired  writers 
that  followed  him,  in  both  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  dis 
pensations,  the  flat  assertions  of  Christ  and  his  followers 
to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

Later  Satan  is  brought  forward  in  propria  persona  by 
the  author  of  the  book  of  Job  and  permitted  to  bargain 
with  God  on  equal  terms  for  the  badgering  of  the  patriarch, 
though  nothing  is  given  of  the  devil 's  origin  or  antecedents 
except  what  he  said  of  himself,  that  he  was  in  the  habit 
of  walking  up  and  down  in  the  earth  and  taking  in  a 
general  sense  of  things. 

In  God's  treatment  of  Pharoah,  when  he  harden^*  the 
Egyptian's  heart  so  that  he  could  not  if  lie  would  let  the 
Israelites  go,  afflicting  unjustly  an  innocent  people  in  con 
sequence,  no  mention  is  made  of  the  devil.  Saint  Matthew, 
however,  in  his  account  of  Christ's  so-called  temptation  rep 
resents  Satan  as  a  free  and  independent  personage. 

As  a  specimen  of  the  incongruities  attending  the  throw 
ing  together  of  bundles  of  ancient  myths  of  divers  nations 
and  calling  them  a  sacred  book,  the  veritable  and  direct 
word  of  God  to  man,  we  have  the  Chaldean  story  of  the 
flood,  as  elsewhere  mentioned,  in  vogue  a  thousand  years 
before  Moses  was  born,  and  utilized  by  the  Hebrews  as  a 
part  of  their  religion. 

It  was  a  cruel  conception,  a  monstrous  charge  to  lay 
upon  a  just  and  holy  being,  a  manifest  hatred  of  his  im 
perfect  work  in  making  a  world  full  of  humanity  predes 
tined  to  Almighty  vengeance  as  displayed  in  the  promis 
cuous  destruction  of  men,  women,  and  children  the 
innocent  and  the  guilty  together.  Such  a  being  as  Moses 
presented,  as  Christ  extolled,  as  Jews  Christians  Moham 
medans  and  Mormons  now  worship  in  ten  thousand 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  391 

churches,  could  not  possibly  exist,  being  in  himself  an  end 
less  contradiction. 

Moses  was  a  good  and  great  man  according  to  his  lights. 
He  saw  that  the  people  in  his  charge  required  something 
more  than  human  influence  for  their  management,  and  he 
therefore  brought  to  his  aid  the  supernatural,  as  spiritual 
leaders  have  done  from  the  beginning  even  to  the  present 
time. 

He  was  also  injudicious  in  laying  down  a  higher  law  for 
his  still  brutish  proteges,  and  in  throwing  off  polytheism 
and  adopting  monotheism  before  they  were  ready  for  it, 
before  indeed  they  were  fairly  clear  of  idolatry.  They 
could  better  have  understood  the  situation  had  there  been 
another  deity  for  them  to  wrestle  with,  a  king  of  evil,  as 
well  as  a  king  of  goodness. 

The  Israelites  caused  God  much  trouble,  though  he  chose 
them  as  a  people  specially  to  favor,  and  helped  them  in 
their  wars  with  other  nations,  urging  them  on  to  every 
atrocity,  to  kill  the  inhabitants,  men  women  and  children, 
to  the  last  person,  and  take  possession  and  occupy  their 
lands.  The  unchecked  doings  in  Europe  of"  the  kaiser,  self 
constituted  vicegerent  of  the  Almighty,  call  to  mind  the 
doings  of  Joshua  at  the  river  Jordan. 

Ttye  God  of  the  Jews  was  a  God  of  violence  and  blood, 
as  was  indeed  the  God  of  the  Christians;  yet  it  was  the 
same  God  to  whom  Christ  gave  quite  a  different  character. 
Many  times  God  lost  patience  with  the  Jews  and  punished 
them  severely.  They  are  still  without  name  or  country, 
waiting  the  fulfilment  of  the  promises  made  to  Abraham 
and  the  coming  of  their  messiah,  having  repudiated  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  as  such.  The  God  of  the  Christians  has  not 
yet  lost  his  taste  for  blood,  if  we  may  judge  the  wars  for 
Christ's  sake  since  Christ  came,  and  the  present  doings 
of  his  people  in  Europe  and  throughout  the  world. 

Christ  was  an  idealist,  and  his  ethics  were  applicable 
only  for  an  ideal  humanity.  His  maxims  have  never  been 
taken  seriously  by  the  great  mass  of  mankind,  and  are  not 


392  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

taken  seriously  or  applied  practically  either  by  the  Chris 
tian  churches  or  the  Christian  people,  of  the  present  time. 
Man's  nature  is  little  changed  since  God  made  it,  and 
Christ's  attempt  at  its  reconstruction  failed. 

In  all  the  2,000  years  since  Christ  came  we  cannot  find 
one  man  who  has  lived  up  to  his  teachings.  Such  teach 
ings  may  be  applicable  in  founding  a  new  school  of  idealism, 
but  of  their  practical  benefit  to  mankind  the  result  shows 
unfavorably.  Further  than  this,  Christ  attempted  to 
change  for  us  the  nature  of  God.  Ignoring  the  imperfec 
tions,  the  passions  and  evil  propensities  of  the  God  of 
Moses,  he  presented  for  our  adoration  a  being  all  goodness, 
all  love,  all  powerful  to  save,  which  character  the  mad 
doings  of  his  people  from  the  very  first  and  all  through 
the  Dark  Age  down  to  the  present  ditch  work  in  Europe 
do  not  sustain. 

In  the  dogma  of  the  trinity,  improvised  or  invented  long 
after  Christ  took  his  departure,  we  have  the  most  puerile, 
and  incongruous  subterfuge  of  all.  An  omnipotent,  omnis 
cient  being  who  made  man,  pronounced  his  work  good,  then 
introduced  an  element  to  overthrow  the  good,  unjustly 
inflicting  punishment  on  millions  of  innocent  people,  could 
not  remove  that  evil  influence  and  restore  man  to  his 
original  purity,  could  not  even  eradicate  his  bad  work 
and  create  anew  as  once  before  he  had  attempted  to  do, 
without  some  personage  on  whom  as  a  scapegoat  he  could 
pretend  to  lay  the  blame  and  so  retain  his  reputation  for 
perfection.  To  obtain  a  proper  scapegoat  this  immaculate 
creative  spirit  must  in  some  way  beget  a  son,  how  or  by 
what  means  is  not  stated,  and  to  improvise  another  holy 
spirit  to  act  as  agent  or  instrument,  by  which  a  virgin  is 
made  to  conceive  and  bring  forth  a  child,  which  being  made 
one  with  and  equal  to  God,  constitutes  a  proper  personage 
on  whose  innocent  shoulders  to  lay  the  alleged  sins  of 
the  world.  And  this  with  other  like  heinous  doctrines  is 
taught  as  truth  and  accepted  as  such  by  persons  of  supposed 
ordinary  human  intelligence  at  the  present  time. 


THE    NEW   RELIGION  393 

Nor  are  the  appeals  of  propagandists  very  complimen 
tary  to  the  creator,  whom  they  are  constantly  reminding 
of  neglected  duties,  and  coming  to  his  aid  with  their  mis 
sionary  work. 

The  rational  alone  is  God-like.  If  there  be  God  within 
us,  it  is  the  God  of  reason.  This  God-like  attribute,  which 
alone  raises  man  out  of  the  category  of  the  brute  creation, 
was  given  us  for  use,  not  to  be  lightly  thrust  aside  for  mean 
ingless  dogmas  of  the  dead  past,  and  for  our  proper  or  im 
proper  use  it  will  be  our  reward  or  punishment,  now  and 
forever. 

The  improvisation  of  the  God  of  the  Hebrews  and  the 
Christians  by  Moses,  or  by  whomsoever  formulated  the 
attributes  and  doings  of  the  Almighty,  is  faulty  and  un 
fortunate,  being  so  full  of  contradictions  and  absurdities 
as  to  make  their  acceptation  impossible  by  persons  of  or 
dinary  thought  and  intelligence. 

Here  is  a  being  set  before  us  for  our  imitation  and 
adoration  as  faultless  yet  full  of  faults ;  a  personage  in  his 
being  wisdom,  power,  holiness,  justice,  goodness,  and  truth, 
yet  in  his  deeds  unjust  and  merciless ;  omnipotent,  yet  un 
able  or  unwilling  to  prevent  evil;  perfect,  yet  the  creator 
only  of  imperfection;  all  loving-kindness,  yet  filled  with 
hate  and  revenge. 

He  makes  a  world,  the  larger  part  of  it  a  waste  of  water 
filled  with  living  things  whose  only  use  or  occupation  is  de 
vouring  one  another ;  on  land  the  same,  a  waste  of  wilder 
ness  inhabited  by  wild  men  and  wild  beasts,  who  likewise 
live  to  kill ;  this  perfect  creation  a  world  shambles,  the  whole 
earth  a  bloody  charnel  house.  Then  religion  in  endless 
forms  springs  up  and  promises  relief,  but  does  not  give 
it. 

In  the  face  of  all  this  a  merit  is  made  of  blind  belief, 
the  only  sort  of  belief  possible,  the  soul's  salvation  turning 
on  faith. 

"The  evidence  of  things  not  seen."  Is  not  that  some 
what  involved  ?  Not  only  of  things  not  seen,  but  that  never 


394  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

happened  or  had  existence.  All  empty  words,  employed  to 
captivate  the  simple.  Then  is  the  little  child  and  the  stupid 
adult  the  most  meritorious  of  humanity,  to  be  given  the 
crown  of  righteousness  and  a  seat  at  God's  right  hand,  for 
they  are  most  of  all  the  easiest  convinced  and  the  most 
stubbornly  established  in  their  convictions. 

There  is  neither  truth  nor  wisdom  in  asserting  dog 
matically  the  alleged  facts  or  falsities  regarding  matters 
of  which  nothing  is  known  by  anyone.  And  of  those  who 
hold  the  scriptures  to  be  true  it  is  wrong  or  irrelevant  to 
question.  Why  does  not  the  Hebrew  messiah  come  as  was 
promised?  Why  does  not  the  Christian  messiah  return 
and  complete  his  work  as  he  promised'?  "A  little  while," 
he  said.  Are  two  thousand  years  a  little  while  ?  It  scarcely 
can  seem  so  to  the  millions  upon  millions  who  have  come 
and  gone,  cast  into  a  burning  hell,  waiting  for  this  little 
while  until  one  sees  no  reason  for  further  trusting  to  this 
promise.  For  omnipotence  to  permit  is  to  achieve.  Here 
is  the  predicate  and  corollary  of  Christianism ;  this  is  what 
the  alleged  holy  book  and  its  self -sufficient  interpreters  say 
that  we  must  affirm  as  our  belief  or  rightly  receive  eternal 
punishment: — A  creator,  all-powerful  yet  powerless  in 
part ;  perfect,  yet  the  author  of  imperfection ;  unchangeable, 
yet  ever  changing;  hating  evil  yet  permitting  it;  affecting 
only  loving-kindness  yet  inflicting  upon  all  creatures  for 
all  time,  with  a  modicum  of  pleasure  and  happiness,  the 
most  horrible  atrocities;  then,  with  all  these  unfulfilled 
pretensions  and  impossible  conditions,  to  endow  this  creator 
with  perfection  so  exalted  and  dignity  so  awful  that  he 
must  not  bring  blame  upon  himself  for  his  bungling  work, 
but  create  for  the  occasion  a  scapegoat  in  the  shape  of  an 
alleged  son,  born  of  an  alleged  virgin,  to  suffer  in  the  place 
of  the  real  delinquent, — could  there  be  concocted  anything 
more  absurd  not  to  say  insulting,  or  placed  before  human 
intelligence  for  compulsory  belief,  and  kept  alive  by  blank 
assertion  ? 

Yet  millions  continue  to  believe,  or  pretend  to  believe, 


THE    NEW   RELIGION  395 

at  least  to  swallow  it,  all  sugar  coated,  and  go  their  way 
rejoicing  in  their  irrational  ignorance  and  stupidity.  For 
not  one  half  of  the  church-goers  believe  to  be  true  what 
they  hear  preached  from  the  pulpit,  nor  do  half  of  the 
half  who  pretend  to  believe  allow  their  conduct  to  be  in 
the  least  influenced  thereby. 

Is  Christianity  then  a  failure?  No,  because  it  never 
achieved  success;  it  never  fulfilled  its  pretensions  and 
promises.  The  ethical  teachings  of  Christ  never  found  ex 
pression  in  human  life. 

It  is  a  somewhat  singular  fact,  but  one  easily  estab 
lished,  that  since  the  coming  of  Christ  preaching  peace 
more  crimes  have  been  committed,  more  wars,  more  mur 
ders,  more  cruelties  have  been  perpetrated  by  Christians, 
or  in  and  for  the  name  of  Christ,  than  by  all  other  persons 
or  from  all  other  causes  put  together. 

Deliverance  from  dangers  and  relief  from  suffering 
are  often  cited  as  proof  of  the  goodness  and  mercy  of  God, 
but  seldom  is  use  made  of  the  danger  and  suffering  brought 
on  or  permitted  by  the  Almighty  as  proof  of  the  evil- 
mindedness  and  cruelty  of  the  deity.  In  their  arguments 
the  defenders  of  the  church  use  chicane  and  hypocrisy,  if 
indeed  their  mental  faculties  are  not  sadly  warped  by 
education  and  environment. 

What  are  those  to  do  lacking  a  personal  interpretation 
or  an  internal  heart  or  mind  illumination  ?  He  is  fortunate 
indeed  who  can  truthfully  say  and  derive  comfort  from 
it,  "I  know  that  my  redeemer  liveth,"  that  is  if  he  knows 
from  what  he  is  redeemed  and  is  satisfied  with  illuminating 
fantasy  in  place  of  the  truth.  The  senselessness  of  the 
whole  scheme  is  so  stupendous  that  it  is  strange  how  ra 
tional  beings  can  entertain  it  for  a  moment.  Indeed,  they 
do  not ;  but  to  quiet  their  intelligence  are  led  off  into  some 
fantastic  realm  of  feeling  where  reason  is  dethroned  and 
fancy  made  to  take  the  place  of  fact. 

When  the  editor  of  a  New  York  Weekly  was  asked  to 
give  a  reason  for  his  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 


396  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

he  said  that  whatever  man  most  earnestly  longed  for  he 
generally  received ;  which  in  the  first  place  is  not  true,  and 
secondly  is  fallacy;  for  where  then  would  we  be  in  case 
we  did  not  happen  to  long  for  immortality?  Belief  in  or 
longing  for  a  thing  does  not  affect  the  fact.  Either  there 
is  or  is  not  a  future  state,  regardless  of  man's  desires. 

"He  doeth  all  things  well."  He  did  up  Adam  pretty 
well,  and  threw  in  posterity  for  nothing.  With  Job  he 
played  fast  and  loose  for  the  edification  of  Satan.  He  did 
Pharoah  finely,  forcing  him  against  his  will  to  continued 
disobedience  while  punishing  him  therefor, — turning  the 
river  to  blood  so  that  the  fish  died,  while  the  waters  did 
stink;  up  from  the  river  then  came  frogs  and  entered  the 
houses  and  sat  upon  the  beds.  And  after  the  frogs  were 
lice;  and  after  the  lice,  swarms  of  flies;  then  a  murrain 
was  sent  upon  the  cattle,  then  boils  upon  the  people,  then 
hail,  then  locusts,  and  finally  came  the  slaying  of  the  first 
born  of  man  and  beast,  and  all  for  the  entertainment  of 
his  pet  people  the  Israelites.  In  these  cruel  conceptions 
Moses  assuredly  did  his  supreme  deity  injustice. 

Yet  these  evil  examples  seemed  to  continue,  as  when 
at  the  Jordan  river  God  set  on  this  Israelitish  band  of 
Adam 's  sons  to  kill  and  rob  other  sons  of  Adam,  the  bloody 
butcheries  there  begun  at  the  fiat  of  the  Almighty  contin 
uing  the  world  over  to  this  day. 

All  this  time  the  monstrous  threat  of  visiting  the  sins 
of  the  fathers  upon  the  children  to  the  third  or  fourth 
generation  was  being  carried  into  execution;  not  however 
without  a  slip  here  and  there,  as  when  the  sin  of  good  King 
David,  the  sweet  singer  of  Israel,  in  the  murder  of  Uriah 
and  the  appropriation  of  his  wife  was  visited  on  his  son 
Solomon  by  giving  him  a  thousand  women  to  keep  him 
quiet. 

Let  us  not  forget,  however,  that  in  this  present  writing 
there  is  no  complaint  or  criticism  of  the  ways  and  works 
of  the  actual  Creator  or  First  Cause,  of  which  we  know 


THE    NEW   RELIGION  397 

nothing,  but  only  a  presentation  of  the  subject  as  given 
us  for  our  enforced  belief  by  our  instructors. 

For  this  is  the  sum  and  the  substance  of  the  Christian 
Bible  and  of  Christian  belief.  This  is  what  Moses  and  the 
prophets,  what  Christ  and  his  followers  make  of  the 
supreme  being : — He  made  all  things,  and  all  very  good ;  he 
did  not  make  all  things,  and  some  things  he  made  were 
very  bad ;  he  made  Satan  and  sin ;  and  man,  his  crowning 
work,  he  filled  full  of  wickedness.  He  made  all  things, 
and  as  a  perfect  being  all  that  he  made  was  perfect;  he 
did  not  make  all  things,  he  was  not  the  author  of  evil ;  he 
does  not  tell  us  who  made  the  devil,  or  how  he  came  into 
the  world,  or  why  he  permits  him  to  live.  A  perfect  being, 
he  could  not  create  imperfection,  and  yet  the  world  is  full 
of  imperfections.  Hating  evil,  he  yet  preserves  it ;  omnip 
otent  and  merciful,  he  cannot  or  will  not  drive  out  sin.  All 
merciful  and  just,  he  predestinates  innocent  man  to  misery, 
death,  and  eternal  torment  for  sin  he  never  committed,  for 
being  and  living  as  God  perforce  made  him  to  be  and  to 
live. 

While  thus  tormenting  man  we  are  told  that  he  orders 
man  to  love  him,  to  adore,  to  praise,  and  pray  to  him. 
After  thus  playing  fast  and  loose  with  his  people  for  4,000 
years,  accepting  and  denying,  promising  without  perform 
ing,  saying  one  thing  and  doing  another,  his  authorities 
concoct  a  scheme  to  divide  his  personality  into  three  parts, 
one  of  them  to  improvise  a  son,  who  is  to  be  sacrificed  to 
satisfy  divine  justice,  as  it  is  called,  or  in  other  words 
to  relieve  the  creator  from  the  odium  arising  from  his 
imperfect  work. 

All  this  is  but  an  inkling  of  what  might  be  said,  yet 
quite  enough  to  confound  mankind. 

Here  endeth  this  none  too  clear  exposition,  in  which 
respect  it  is  not  unlike  all  that  has  been  given  in  all  ages 
for  the  edification  of  mankind  by  professors  of  the  un 
knowable. 


398  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

And  the  summary  is: — 

''God  made  all  things." 

' '  Yes ;  but  he  did  not  make  the  devil  and  sin. ' ' 

'  *  Then  he  did  not  make  all  things.  Who  then  made  the 
devil  and  sin?" 

"  I  do  not  know ;  I  only  know  that  God  is  not  the  author 
of  evil." 

"How  do  you  know?" 

"Were  he  so,  he  were  not  God." 

' '  Very  true ;  yet  so  it  is  written. ' ' 

"What  then  can  I  do;  what  must  I  do  to  be  saved"" 

"Believe"  saith  the  spectre. 

"Believe  what?" 

"Oh,  anything,  everything;  just  believe,  believe  or  be 
damned. ' ' 

"I  believe  in  the  eternity  of  truth,  the  immutability  of 
justice,  and  the  omnipotence  of  righteousness.  Of  gods  and 
devils  I  believe  nothing,  knowing  nothing.  As  to  what 
I  am,  or  where  I  am,  and  for  what  purpose  here,  or  for 
what  destination  hereafter  I  know  not,  nor  does  any  one 
know." 

"I  repent  me  that  I  made  man,"  saith  the  Almighty. 
Wherefore  if  he  cannot  or  will  not  obliterate  them,  he  must 
now  be  repenting  that  he  made  Germany  and  kaiser  kultur. 

And  it  would  seem  opportune  at  this  juncture  for  Christ 
again  to  appear  and  redeem  himself  by  making  good  his 
pretensions  and  promises. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  WAR  IN  EUROPE 

SATAN,  solus.  j  "So!  Is  it  so,  my  children  "?— and  he 
smiled,  plying  his  tail  with  complacency.  "Is  it  thus 
I  find  you  amusing  yourselves  as  Moses  found  his  people 
on  coming  down  from  the  Mount? — only  I  see  nothing  in 
your  gambolings  quite  so  rational  as  making  for  yourselves 
a  golden  calf  to  worship.  A  somewhat  freer  indulgence  in 
blood-lust  and  malevolence  than  the  occasion  calls  for,  is  it 
not?  Christian  Europe,  in  the  most  humane  age  of  the 
world  dehumanized,  imbruted,  all  ablaze  in  a  frenzy  of 
wrath,  your  songs  of  happiness  turned  to  hymns  of  hate, 
and  this,  four  thousand  years  from  Abraham,  two  thousand 
years  from  Christ.  An  advance  in  moral  uprightness  and 
refinement,  truly ! — though  seemingly  a  profitless  industry 
breeding  men  for  manure.  I  am  surprised, — and  pleased, 
though  I  take  shame  in  that  I  have  no  entertainment  to  offer 
you  surpassing  this. 

' '  Or  is  it  only  an  infernal  festival  I  see,  a  celebration  per 
chance  of  your  vaunted  civilization,  your  worshipful  Chris 
tianity?  Kindly  interpret  to  me  these  terms,  for  in  their 
significance  I  can  discern  nothing  more  than  a  thin  veneer 
of  culture  and  courtesy  over  raw  human  nature  as  exem 
plified  in  your  illustrious  predecessor  Cain;  the  one,  the 
evolution  of  the  ages,  the  unfolding  of  intellect  along  lines 
always  significant  of  its  origin ;  the  other  a  blind  following 
of  ancient  fantasies  the  effluvia  of  ignorance  and  supersti 
tion. 

"For  you  say,  'Ever  the  best  remains,'  'The  purest  only 
to  be  permanent.'     Wherefore  after  these  many  several 

399 


400  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

centuries  of  effort  and  endurance  we  have  before  us  in  this 
highly  intellectual  and  refined  performance  a  specimen  of 
your  best  and  purest. 

"  'Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law/  saith  the  scriptures. 
Behold  how  these  Christians  love  one  another! 

"Again,  'By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.'  This, 
then,  that  I  see,  is  the  fruitage  of  Christ's  ministrations 
among  you ;  this  the  application  of  his  divine  teachings  to 
your  daily  lives.  I  seem  to  remember  in  times  past  some 
thing  of  discordant  doings  among  the  elect  resulting  in 
many  battles  and  butcheries,  Christians  killing  Christians 
for  opinion's  sake,  Christians  killing  pagans  for  Christ's 
sake,  proselyting  and  purifying  with  fire  and  sword,  not  to 
mention  inquisitions,  autos-da-fe,  torture  chambers,  Bar 
tholomew  massacres,  and  a  thousand  other  crimes  com 
mitted  in  the  name  of  the  meek  and  lowly  Jesus. 

"But  all  such  ways  of  winning  heaven  pale  before  this 
magnificent  ditch-work;  before  these  braying  mortars  that 
so  bravely  level  forts  and  tear  to  shreds  beautiful  cities, 
mingling  with  the  broken  work  of  art  the  mangled  remains 
of  the  unoffending  inhabitants;  before  your  vikings  of  the 
air  dropping  destruction  on  the  mothers  and  babes  of 
peaceful  homes ;  before  your  battleships  coasting  stealthily 
for  some  unprotected  health  or  pleasure  place ;  before  your 
terrible  under-water  engines  hurling  to  hades  a  thousand 
souls  at  a  single  blast. 

"Great  days  these  of  electrical  industries,  of  iron  and 
oil  creations,  of  ever  yet  more  powerful  explosives,  of  ever 
yet  more  efficient  death-dealing  machinery;  and  now  that 
all  these  good  things  might  not  run  to  waste  the  demons 
of  Christian  civilization  are  let  loose  and  all  Europe  goes 
off  in  an  ecstasy  of  mutual  slaughter. 

"Founded  on  superstition  and  militancy,  which  find 
expression  not  in  the  teachings  of  the  sacred  books  but  in 
the  base  passions  of  rulers,  religion  becomes  a  factor  in  the 
origin  and  continuance  of  the  war.  Statesmen,  diplomats, 
learned  professors  who  chop  logic  to  make  the  worse  appear 


THE    WAR   IN   EUROPE  401 

the  better  part ;  preachers  who  blaspheme  from  the  pulpit, 
and  prayer-mongers  who  call  on  God  to  help  his  only  true 
and  chosen  people  in  their  ferocious  doings,  the  quality  of 
their  petitions  explained  and  emphasized  by  these  orgies 
of  human  butchery,  by  this  outbreak  of  piety  in  vindictive 
passion, — a  new  demonstration  in  love  and  charity  per 
chance,  the  love  of  bloodshed  and  the  charity  that  turns 
from  widow's  wails  and  orphan's  cries.  Me,  I  would  not 
to  people  my  kingdom  resort  to  such  sophistries.  I  hold 
to  scorn  these  profane  babblings  that  find  expression  in 
cruelty,  treachery,  revenge,  loss  of  integrity,  loss  of  honor, 
in  robbery,  rape  and  rank  injustice,  the  fruits  by  which  we 
are  to  know  the  bright  road  of  progress  and  kaiser  kultur. 

"Ah!  it  is  progress  indeed,  such  progress  that  another 
thousand  years  of  it  will  make  of  this  earth  a  hell  so  hot 
that  my  abode  beside  it  will  be  as  the  hall  of  Valhalla  or 
the  garden  of  the  Hesperides.  Wherefore  I  Beelzebub, 
king  of  kings,  salute  thee,  William,  king  of  Germany ! 

"Admit  then,  beloved,  that  the  devil  is  not  so  black  as  he 
is  painted,  that  he  alone  in  a  world  of  mummery,  lying, 
self-deception,  and  hypocrisy  dare  speak  the  truth.  Go  to, 
then,  I,  Lucifer,  star  of  the  morning,  will  prate  and  pray 
with  you  in  all  honesty  and  sincerity.  Listen.  Let  us  pray. 
Let  us  all  pray,  of  whatsoever  name  or  nation,  help  us  Oh 
Lord !  to  kill ;  help  us  to  kill.  Listen  not  to  our  adversaries. 
Curse  them,  good  Lord,  curse  them;  confound  their  pol 
itics,  frustrate  their  knavish  tricks.  Art  not  thou  Oh  God ! 
a  God  of  war,  and  is  not  thy  church  a  church  militant? 
Then  help  us  Oh  God !  only  us  thy  servants,  to  kill,  help  us 
to  kill.  Give  us  peace  in  thine  own  time,  good  Lord,  peace 
with  mastery,  only  with  mastery,  remember,  good  Lord. 
Help  us  to  kill,  Oh  Lord !  to  kill. 

1 '  How  perfectly  ethical  and  logical  is  prayer ! 

' '  '  The  churches  are  impotent, '  your  wiseacres  say.  Cer 
tainly,  any  one  can  see  that.  'Christianity  is  impotent/ 
How  do  you  know ;  has  it  ever  been  tried  ?  '  Prayer  is  im 
potent/  Then  why  insult  high  heaven  with  the  trash  you 


402  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

offer  it,  knowing;  nothing,  believing  nothing,  expecting  noth 
ing.  And  as  for  the  prayers  of  belligerents,  it  makes  us 
smile  down  our  way,  so  tangled  they  become  ere  reaching 
the  throne  of  grace. 

"  'It  repenteth  me  that  I  made  man,'  saith  the  Lord. 
Wherefore  ye  who  preach  and  pray  for  lucre,  not  for  souls, 
who  teach  God  his  duty,  telling  him  so  much  he  never  knew 
before,  were  it  not  well  to  mention  his  mistake  about  the 
Ark,  in  saving  any  one  when  drowning  the  world  in  water ; 
a  mistake  which  may  now  be  rectified  in  drowning  the  world 
in  blood,  and  this  time  make  a  clean  sweep  of  it,  for  is  not 
the  kaiser  the  son  of  Noah?  Then,  further,  were  it  not 
well  to  devise  some  other  means  for  the  betterment  of  man 
kind  than  drowning  the  people  he  has  made,  whether  in 
water  or  blood  ?  Were  it  not  as  well  to  abolish  the  Hague, 
burn  your  peace-temples,  leave  inane  prayers  and  prating 
to  women  and  fanatics,  and  get  at  something  sensible  ? 

11  'God  save  the  king!'  I  hear  you  cry;  or  if  of  Britain 
you  say  God  save  our  excuse  for  a  king.  Why  is  this,  why 
do  you  want  God  to  save  your  king?  Is  it  because  he  as 
sumes  superiority,  claims  divine  rulership  inherited  from 
some  medieval  pirate  or  cutthroat  baron  ?  Is  it  because  he 
imposes  upon  you  unjust  burdens,  makes  traffic  of  woman 
hood,  harnesses  you  to  crime,  forcing  you  to  commit  any 
iniquity  his  passions  may  dictate? 

' '  Go  to,  poor  mites  of  humanity,  crawling  about  on  this 
little  lump  of  earth,  your  necks  under  the  iron  heel  of 
despot  rulers.  Of  what  use  to  you  are  kings,  pygmies  under 
high  heaven  strutting  their  brief  lives  away,  presently 
1o  rot  like  the  rest,  yet  whom  you  follow  like  sheep  to  the 
shambles.  Of  what  benefit  to  the  world  are  the  royal 
drones,  the  vagrant  nobility,  the  large  idle  class  that  scorn 
work  but  scorn  not  to  live  on  the  work  of  others,  and  which 
you  are  forced  to  support,  besides  the  burdens  of  war, 
religion,  and  crime?  I  fain  would  wish  you  a  better  fate. 
Do  you  not  know  that  all  cultures  and  cults  grow  rank  with 
age  and  die ;  do  you  not  see  that  your  progress  is  downward 


THE    WAR   IN    EUROPE  403 

as  well  as  upward,  your  wars  a  crime,  your  religion  a  hol 
low  mockery  which  is  always  harking  back  to  the  paganism 
of  ancient  Egypt  and  Rome,  while  the  star  of  destiny  is 
ever  more  radiant  in  the  west,  new  light  even  now  breaking 
forth  over  the  vast  amphitheatre  of  the  Pacific  with  every 
sign  of  promise  for  the  great  and  final  development. 

"Enough.  If  you  are  content  to  remain  thus,  even  as 
I  see  you  now,  compelled  by  your  gracious  sovereign  to 
crawl  in  ditches  on  your  bellies  and  shoot  men  down  as  he 
shall  direct,  men  you  do  not  know  and  with  whom  you  have 
no  variance,  so  do.  If  not,  come  with  me  to  a  higher,  hap 
pier  hell  where  wickedness  may  be  enjoyed  with  some  de 
gree  of  common  sense  and  decency. ' ' 

With  the  first  flush  of  amazement,  the  first  wave  of 
horror  that  swept  over  America  on  the  breaking  out  of  hos 
tilities  in  Europe  came  sincere  sorrow  and  sympathy  for 
those  about  to  suffer,  for  those  about  to  die.  The  pity  of  it ! 
Physical  endurance  beyond  compare,  and  mental  distress; 
then  the  loss  to  humanity,  the  blow  to  faith  and  progress, 
the  blow  to  society,  to  intellectual  advancement  and  esthetic 
culture,  reform  rolled  back,  Christianity  made  contemp 
tible,  the  return  to  brute  force  and  beastliness,  all  showing 
how  thin  the  coating  of  civilization  and  religion  that  covers 
our  earthly  natures.  Soon,  however,  and  subconsciously 
swept  in  upon  us  a  sense  of  satisfaction  with  our  better  lot, 
and  finally  speculation  as  to  how  we  might  profit  by  the 
situation. 

The  popular  idea  seemed  to  be  that  prosperity,  as  the 
gentle  rain  from  heaven,  was  to  fall  on  all  alike,  without 
effort  on  the  part  of  any ;  but  when  the  hard  times  following 
the  new  tariff  continued,  and  to  the  income  tax  was  added 
another  by  courtesy  called  a  war  tax,  but  in  reality  a  tax 
made  necessary  by  our  invasion  of  Mexico  and  other  inju 
dicious  acts,  it  appeared  that  the  alleged  prosperity  was  not 
to  be  immediate  and  universal. 

Conditions  were  imposed.     The  south  could  not  sell  its 


404  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

cotton,  so  that  there  was  no  prosperity  there.  Exporters 
of  raw  material  in  the  north  were  likewise  in  a  quandary. 
New  York  was  deep  in  financial  problems,  and  closed  the 
Stock  Exchange  to  avoid  panic.  Chicago  and  the  middle 
west  were  the  best  off  of  any,  having  food  products  and 
manufactured  articles  to  sell.  San  Francisco  and  the 
Pacific  coast  soon  shipped  away  the  limited  supply  of  fruit 
and  grain,  leaving  ample  time  for  the  mind  to  dwell  on  the 
benefits  of  the  Panama  canal  and  the  glories  of  the  two 
expositions.  So  passed  away  the  first  months  of  the  Euro 
pean  war  with  little  appearance  of  great  immediate  profit 
to  America. 

Entering  the  second  half  year  of  the  war,  times  grew 
worse  rather  than  better.  The  industrial  world  was  par 
alyzed.  Men  of  affairs  in  an  atmosphere  of  financial  unrest, 
everywhere  frenzied  fighting,  wars  of  uncertain  duration, 
were  afraid  to  move  lest  they  should  make  a  mistake.  Ocean 
transportation  was  perilous,  and  dealings  with  the  warring 
nations  difficult.  The  earthquake  in  Italy  added  to  the 
horrors  of  famine  in  Poland  and  Belgium,  and  among  the 
early  movements  of  ocean-going  craft,  following  the  first 
ravages  of  the  war,  were  relief  shipments  to  those  coun 
tries.  Adding  to  the  general  embarrassment  were  the 
blockades  declared  by  the  belligerents  one  against  the  other, 
the  war  zone  thrown  around  the  British  isles  supported  by 
German  mines  while  England  placed  chief  dependence  on 
her  fleet. 

But  whether  or  not  fighting  continued,  the  world  must 
be  fed  and  clothed,  and  for  supplies  all  eyes  were  turned 
toward  America ;  so  that  later  woolen  clothing,  cotton  knit 
goods,  leather  and  rubber  boots  and  shoes,  harness  and 
saddles,  motor  cars,  and  metal-working  machinery  began 
to  move  across  the  water  at  the  rate  of  five  or  six  millions 
of  dollars  a  day  taking  the  place  of  raw  material  exports, 
which  for  the  United  States  was  the  beginning  of  a  new 
prosperity,  exports  exceeding  imports  for  a  time  at  the 
rate  of  a  billion  dollars  a  year.  Soon  we  were  making  cloth 


THE    WAR   IN   EUROPE  405 

such  as  England  formerly  made;  we  took  from  Bavaria  to 
some  extent  the  toy  and  machine  industries,  from  France 
wines  and  women's  wear,  and  so  on.  Alien  immigration, 
however,  of  which  a  large  increase  was  expected,  fell  off 
from  the  average  of  previous  years  seventy -five  per  cent. 

Great  Britain  made  an  effort  to  capture  some  of  the 
German  trade,  publishing  a  monthly  magazine  entitled 
Made  in  England,  but  little  came  of  it.  There  was  little 
production  in  France  other  than  agricultural.  The  famine 
scare  increased  sweeping  over  the  world.  Appeals  for 
bread  came  in  from  every  quarter,  from  Belgium,  Poland, 
Servia,  Palestine,  Montenegro,  Mexico,  Samoa,  and  else 
where,  while  England  and  Germany  were  trying  to  starve 
each  other  out.  Even  the  United  States  talked  of  placing 
an  embargo  on  wheat.  Yet  at  that  moment  it  was  only 
America  between  Belgium  and  starvation. 

As  time  passed  by  it  became  more  and  more  apparent 
that  the  effect  of  the  war  on  the  United  States  as  a  whole 
would  not  prove  beneficial  for  some  time  to  come,  if  at  all. 
We  saw  also  that  it  was  not  a  war  of  peoples  but  of  rulers, 
who  filled  with  malignity  stood  aside  in  places  of  safety 
while  prodding  on  their  soldiers  in  the  trenches,  with  little 
hate  in  their  hearts,  to  kill,  they  knew  not  why;  and  that 
at  the  bottom  of  it  was  militarism,  which  means  applied 
machinery  for  the  slaughter  of  men,  just  as  Chicago  has 
applied  machinery  for  the  slaughter  of  cattle.  We  saw 
that  it  was  not  a  European  war  alone,  but  a  world  war,  one 
in  which  sooner  or  later  Asia  and  America  would  have 
their  part  to  play.  It  was  not  a  passing  freak  of  the 
Almighty  at  the  hand  of  his  chosen  rulers,  but  a  regular 
old-fashioned  raid  for  blood  and  plunder,  for  loot  and 
land,  attended  by  the  usual  medieval  outrages;  this  for 
Germany,  while  for  England  and  France  it  signified  in 
case  of  defeat  denationalization.  All  the  same  they  were 
rather  slow  in  coming  to  the  assistance  of  Belgium  who 
interposed  her  body  to  check  the  avalanche.  England  is 


406  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

iiot  quick  to  do  for  herself  what  another  will  do  for  her. 
She  does  not  deal  in  sentiment;  she  does  not  scorn  to  reap 
where  others  have  sown ;  yet  being  in  for  this  war,  which 
to  her  is  life  or  death,  she  will  fight  it  out  thoroughly  and 
to  a  finish. 

Fortunately  neither  prayers  for  peace  nor  friendly  in 
terposition  succeeded  in  terminating  the  war  in  Europe. 
Did  ever  anyone  expect  it?  The  worst  that  could  befall 
would  be  to  establish  peace  before  certain  issues  were 
determined,  without  which  settlement  all  the  blood  and 
treasure  thus  far  spent  were  worse  than  thrown  away.  It 
is  only  ignorance  of  conditions  and  shallow  self -flattery  that 
cause  the  occasional  outburst  of  simple  souls  in  wide-spread 
prayer  and  inane  peace  proposals. 

The  contending  forces  had  as  yet  reached  no  stopping 
place.  For  though  ages  may  intervene,  the  full  fruitage  of 
this  conflict  will  not  appear  until  kings,  royalties,  and  titled 
nobility  with  hereditary  rulership  are  abolished,  Prussian 
militarism  exterminated,  and  infamous  episodes  like  the 
present  war  made  impossible. 

Prussian  militarism;  what  is  it?  Rightly  it  has  been 
called  a  system  without  a  soul;  a  state  that  is  a  distinct 
entity,  without  moral  sense  or  obligation ;  a  nation  that  is 
an  army  and  an  army  that  is  a  nation ;  a  force  for  aggres 
sion,  not  for  defense ;  a  huge  machine  for  crushing  peoples, 
into  whose  wheels  men  for  cogs  are  fitted,  the  emperor  of 
Germany  at  the  engine  and  diplomats  and  professors  at  the 
furnace. 

During  the  brief  period  since  this  war  began  our  eyes 
have  been  opened  to  evils  threatening  interests  vital  to  the 
human  race.  We  see  the  rulers  of  great  nations,  among 
the  foremost  in  intellect  and  culture,  giving  themselves  up 
more  than  ever  before  to  the  science  and  art  of  human 
slaughter,  cavalierly  relegating  in  time  of  war,  honor,  hon 
esty,  integrity,  and  humanity  to  the  plea  of  necessity.  To 
this  end  the  whole  country  is  laid  under  contribution. 
To  this  end  the  boy  is  trained  and  the  man  must  respond.  To 


THE    WAR   IN    EUROPE  407 

this  end  the  rulers,  divine  or  devilish,  lay  heavy  burdens 
upon  the  people  and  drive  them  to  their  death  at  pleasure. 
What  matters  it  to  the  master,  a  few  more  millions  slain, 
a  few  more  millions  starved,  the  wrecking  of  a  few  more 
cities,  the  laying  waste  of  a  few  more  provinces,  prosperous 
towns  reduced  to  a  memory ;  it 's  all  in  the  day 's  work,  and 
necessary. 

Every  male  infant  born  of  a  German  mother,  to  become 
a  German  subject,  enters  the  world  a  bondsman,  as  part 
of  a  mechanism  whose  purpose  and  practice  is  the  killing 
of  human  beings.  From  this  thraldom  there  is  no  escape 
save  through  the  gates  of  death.  At  the  proper  age  and 
time,  boy  or  man,  the  victim  is  placed  before  others  like 
himself,  and  all  driven  on  to  slaughter.  It  is  a  slavery  of 
the  soul.  Doomed  to  the  shambles  from  childhood  by  a 
rulership  purporting  to  be  of  divine  origin  and  agency,  and 
sustained  by  learned  professors  trained  in  the  same  school 
and  bound  to  promulgate  the  same  doctrine,  the.re  is  no 
crime  the  ruler  may  choose  to  impose  that  the  subject  can 
refuse  to  commit.  Obviously  the  nation  or  nations  that 
follow  this  system  and  handle  such  machinery  can  dominate 
those  that  do  not;  in  a  word  can  rule  the  world  as  it  now 
stands.  This  compels  others,  Americans  as  well  as  Euro 
peans,  to  adopt  the  same  method  or  go  out  of  business, 
which  means  a  return  to  feudalism.  It  is  therefore  life  or 
death,  the  total  eradication  of  German  militarism  from  the 
face  of  the  earth. 

A  century  ago  the  French  emperor  made  himself  auto 
crat  of  Europe;  his  methods  were  bad  enough,  but  not  so 
infamous  as  are  those  of  the  German  emperor  today,  yet 
England  and  Germany  rose  and  drove  Napoleon  out. 
Better  America  should  join  the  allies  than  that  the  world 
should  continue  as  shambles  with  the  science  and  art  of 
killing  men  as  the  chief  industry.  As  scourge  of  the  world 
the  German  William  is  worse  than  was  ever  any  French 
Napoleon  or  Spanish  Philip.  With  this  sort  of  absolutism 
in  vogue  in  Europe,  a  peace-at-any-price  people  in  any  part 


408  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

of  the  world  would  be  among  the  first  to  suffer.  A  good 
supply  of  battleships,  submarines,  and  air  ships  are  the  best 
argument  in  diplomatic  circles. 

The  claim  of  a  divine  right  of  one  man  to  rule  over 
others,  it  is  needless  here  to  say,  is  an  insult  to  human 
intelligence.  The  forcing  of  men  to  fight  like  wild  beasts 
or  gladiators  in  the  arena  is  a  form  of  fiendishness  worthy 
of  a  Roman  Nero  or  a  Russian  Peter;  the  maintenance  of 
men  and  machinery  for  inroads  upon  neighboring  nations 
and  the  butchery  of  the  innocent  inhabitants  is  a  crime 
worthy  of  a  German  William,  and  exceeding  all  other 
crimes.  Few  realized  until  they  saw  its  horrible  devourings 
what  a  monster  high  civilization  was  harboring.  The  only 
hope  for  the  extinction  of  militarism  and  a  long  period  of 
peace  is  in  the  final  triumph  of  the  triple  entente. 

The  cause  of  the  war  and  by  whom  originated  were 
topics  of  controversy  at  first,  each  laying  the  blame  upon 
the  other;  but  the  matter  was  soon  dropped  as  of  small 
moment  beside  the  awful  realities  that  followed.  The 
causes  in  due  time  appeared,  and  so  plainly  marked  that 
few  found  difficulty  in  reaching  proper  conclusions  despite 
the  false  reasoning  and  absurd  deductions  made  by  profes 
sors  and  rulers.  Preparedness,  with  kultur  and  divine 
kingship  as  a  basic  element;  add  commercial  jealousy  and 
elemental  hate  and  we  have  not  long  to  await  spontaneous 
combustion. 

Germany,  militarized  by  forty  years  of  study,  invention, 
and  drill,  with  the  largest  army  and  the  most  perfect  mili 
tary  machinery  which  had  yet  been  seen,  took  the  field 
under  the  banner  of  reinforced  barbarism,  hastening  the 
attack  before  the  other  belligerents  were  fairly  awake  to 
the  situation  in  the  expectation  of  the  immediate  capture 
of  Paris,  which  would  have  been  accomplished  but  for  the 
intervention  of  brave  little  Belgium. 

Von  Bernhardi  outlined  in  his  book  three  years  before 
the  war,  as  is  well  known,  the  course  which  afterward  was 
followed,  openly  discussing  the  policy  of  a  world  empire. 


THE    WAR   IN   EUROPE  409 

With  refreshing  candor  the  kaiser  claims  that  as  vicegerent 
of  the  Almighty  and  divinely  appointed  dominator  of  the 
world,  with  a  kultur  which  to  have  means  deep  conscience 
and  high  morale,  he  is  not  bound  by  ordinary  laws  or  per 
sonal  pledges,  for  he  alone  can  truly  translate  humanism. 
It  is  idle  for  professors  to  pretend  that  the  kaiser  and  his 
cohorts  did  not  want  the  war. 

Because  Germany,  insincere  and  treacherous,  prepared 
for  it  long  and  strenuously,  applying  all  the  genius  of  art 
and  industry  to  the  construction  of  death-dealing  imple 
ments;  because  she  plainly  declared  her  purpose  before 
hand  first  to  dominate  Europe,  then  Asia  and  America; 
because  from  the  beginning  she  everywhere  assumed  the 
offensive,  springing  the  conflict  suddenly  upon  the  unpre 
pared,  breaking  treaties,  forfeiting  honor,  treating  with 
barbarous  cruelty  and  injustice  unoffending  peoples;  and 
because  of  her  ability  at  any  time  to  have  prevented  or 
terminated  hostilities,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  odium  of  the 
bloodiest  and  most  senseless  of  wars  that  ever  disgraced 
the  name  of  man  will  rest  with  the  present  rulers  of  Ger 
many  to  the  end  of  time.  The  crime  of  Belgium,  alone  an 
endless  shame ;  a  peaceful,  happy  land,  villainously  entered 
and  wantonly  destroyed,  then  after  seizing  for  them 
selves  the  food  supply,  and  imposing  exorbitant  ransom 
upon  the  despoiled  cities,  the  conquerors  turn  their  back 
upon  the  inhabitants  shivering  under  the  debris  of  their 
so  lately  happy  homes,  and  seven  millions  survivors,  old 
men,  women,  and  children  are  left  in  their  misery  with 
the  oncoming  winter  to  freeze,  and  starve,  and  die. 

We  have  been  taught  to  regard  Germany  as  the  pro 
tector  of  culture,  the  guardian  of  the  highest  civilization 
and  of  the  purest  religion,  a  barrier  to  the  inroads  of  the 
barbaric  Muscovite;  but  when  we  see  the  rulers  of  Ger 
many  trampling  under  foot  the  teachings  of  Christ, 
assuming  God's  place  and  prerogative  on  this  earth,  and 
the  professors  of  the  universities  defending  with  illogical 


410  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

verbiage  diabolical  cruelty  and  injustice,  we  say  open  the 
gates  and  let  the  Russians  in. 

The  day  will  come  perhaps  when  the  German  emperor 
will  be  pleased  to  talk  peace  and  peace  conditions.  Who 
then  will  listen?  Of  what  worth  the  word  of  one  dis 
honored,  forsworn?  Of  what  value  the  promise  of  one 
who  openly  declares  himself  void  of  truthfulness,  void  of 
integrity,  his  treaty  worthless,  his  bond  waste  paper?  A 
nation  outlawed,  perjured,  why  waste  time  concocting 
terms  with  such  an  one?  Necessity  knows  no  law,  the 
kaiser  alone  being  judge  of  what  is  necessary.  War  is  a 
necessity  whenever  the  kaiser  chooses  so  to  declare  it. 
War  knows  no  law;  the  kaiser  knows  no  law;  yet  while 
breaking  laws  and  treaties  ad  libitum  Germany  protests 
loudly  against  the  breaking  of  international  laws  by  others. 

When  a  country  outlaws  itself  under  the  plea  of  neces 
sity,  concrete  acts  of  infamy  upheld  by  the  German  chan 
cellor  and  sustained  by  the  German  war  book — how  make 
honorable  compacts  with  a  state  outlawed? 

And  what  would  be  the  effect  on  the  world  were  the 
kaiser's  high  code  of  ethics  allowed  a  free  course ?  Already 
foxy  Japan  talks  of  not  only  repudiating  her  promises  of 
restoration  to  China  of  the  late  conquests  on  her  border 
from  the  Germans,  but  is  making  further  extortionate  de 
mands  hitherto  little  thought  of.  For  is  not  the  Mikado 
likewise  divine,  Buddha  incarnate,  and  can  he  not  interpret 
the  word  necessity  as  well  as  any  German  potentate  when 
ever  he  wishes  further  lootings  in  China  ?  And  that  is  all 
the  time;  indeed,  Japan  would  not  object  to  taking  over 
all  of  China,  and  may  find  it  one  day  "necessary"  to  do  so 
unless  Germany  gets  in  before  her.  It  is  a  dangerous  pre 
cedent,  and  a  fine  example  for  pagandom,  this  mixture  of 
lawless  ambition  with  fanaticism  and  the  divinity  craze,  the 
Teutonic  blood-lust  and  kultur-lust  with  inherited  rulership 
back  of  it  all. 

And  let  America  have  a  care  of  being  caught  napping. 
The  Asiatic  Frenchmen  are  a  polite  people,  but  when 


THE    WAR   IN   EUROPE  411 

Nippon  protests  too  much  then  beware  of  Nippon.  Should 
the  United  States  become  seriously  involved  in  war  inade 
quately  armed,  Japan  will  doubtless  find  it  necessary  to  take 
over  the  Philippines,  and  complete  her  occupation  of  the 
Hawaiian  islands,  already  well  begun.  And  alas  and  alack 
for  the  little  Nipponese  when  the  fierce  Teutons  reach  the 
day  of  reckoning!  For  it  will  then  be  found  necessary 
to  break  any  terms  of  peace  which  meantime  may  have  been 
made,  while  due  chastisement  is  inflicted. 

The  kaiser  and  his  sycophants  are  so  obsessed  by  a 
sense  of  their  superiority,  claiming  for  their  august  chief 
special  privileges  from  heaven  by  which  Germany  is  fated 
to  universal  sovereignty,  that  their  mental  vision  becomes 
obscured,  preventing  them  from  seeing  far  beyond  the 
limits  of  their  horizon.  With  superb  egotism,  and  a  fanat 
icism  bordering  on  insanity,  they  openly  declare  their  mis 
sion  of  world  dominance,  of  which  these  present  wars  are 
the  initiative. 

And  the  kaiser,  though  suffering  from  his  superlative 
excellence  and  high  destiny  still  asserts  that  he  does  not 
want  to  be  king  of  the  world,  but  kultur  and  the  divinity 
that  doth  hedge  him  about  constraineth  him. 

With  brute  force,  and  brutishness,  enough  and  to 
spare,  the  Germans  have  accomplished  wonders,  but  the 
time  has  passed  when  brute  force  can  hold  universal  sov 
ereignty,  and  Germany  lacks  moral  force,  lacks  even  a 
moral  sense,  notwithstanding  the  kaiser's  asseverations, 
while  denying  any  purpose  of  founding  a  world  empire, 
that  in  the  kultur,  "the  deep  conscience,  industry,  and 
high  morale  of  the  German  people,  is  to  be  found  a  con 
quering  power  that  will  open  the  world  for  them. ' ' 

Germany  assumes  omnipotence,  but  despotism  is  no 
proof  of  omnipotence.  Germany  would  rule  the  world 
while  practising  violence,  but  the  time  is  past  when  the 
world  can  be  governed  by  violence.  More  moral  force 
with  less  physical  force  would  serve  the  purpose  better. 

Von  Bernhardi  and  the  emperor  of  course  deny  any 


412  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

intention  of  world  empire,  but  who  would  trust  them? 
Who  could  tell  what  necessities  might  arise,  what  militar 
ism  might  demand,  or  to  what  measures  preparedness  and 
power  might  tempt  them?  Of  what  worth  is  the  pledged 
word  or  the  written  obligation  of  men  whose  boast  is  that 
their  will  is  superior  to  law,  that  any  treaty  they  may 
choose  to  break  is  waste  paper? 

The  deep  conscience  and  high  morale  of  the  German 
people  were  manifest  in  their  public  rejoicing  over  the 
achievements  of  the  German  admiral  who  sailed  along  the 
English  coast  firing  on  defenceless  women  and  children; 
and  after  devastating  Belgium  how  fine  the  chivalry  dis 
played  by  the  indifference  of  the  raiders  to  the  misery  they 
had  caused,  not  to  mention  the  order  forbidding  the  rescue 
of  drowning  seamen  blown  to  destruction  by  their  sub 
marines  ! 

The  limit  of  sanity,  however,  is  reached  when  Professor 
Eucken  presents  the  ideal  of  the  fatherland  as  a  spiritual 
entity,  wherein  he  discerns  loftier  manifestations  since  the 
war  began,  notably  in  the  manly  methods  of  ditch-work 
warfare,  so  superior  to  that  of  the  cowardly  forest  savages 
shooting  from  behind  trees,  and  in  the  admirable  behavior 
of  the  new  machinery  employed  in  devastating  Belgium 
by  the  kaiser,  whose  ideals  of  Teutonic  kultur  and  the 
destiny  of  his  people  soar  yet  higher  as  he  battles  for  the 
deliverance  of  the  world. 

In  this  new  idealism  there  is  no  selfishness,  no  lust  for 
loot  or  land,  no  thirst  for  power  or  revenge;  all  men  of 
all  nations,  friends  and  foes  alike  shall  share  it, — all  that 
is  left  of  them  after  this  carnival  of  slaughter  is  over.  As 
an  excuse  for  this  war  Professor  Eucken,  like  the  others, 
pleads  necessity,  a  joyous  necessity  as  he  declares,  resulting 
in  a  transformation  of  soul.  Vaterland  spiritualized  by 
the  new  kultur,  a  cognate  people  from  inner  coherence 
made  fit  for  the  new  earth  and  the  new  heaven  prepared 
for  them. 

Even  though  to  ears  attuned  this  does  not  sound  like 


THE    WAR   IN   EUROPE  413 

Teutonic  rot,  yet  it  were  quite  as  well  never  to  put  it  into 
English.  We  have  only  to  turn  to  Belgium  for  a  specimen 
of  kaiser  love  and  kultur  discipline  which  we  can  easily 
understand;  or  if  we  prefer  peace  at  any  price  we  have 
only,  like  Luxembourg,  humbly  to  submit  and  our  lives 
may  be  spared  and  our  cities  escape  destruction. 

As  the  world's  war  lord,  with  the  world  before  him 
and  the  Prussia  that  Bismarck  and  von  Moltke  had  made 
for  him  at  his  back,  his  people  meanwhile  confident  in  his 
infallibility,  there  is  little  wonder  that  the  emperor  William, 
still  human  though  not  knowing  it,  might  sometimes  over 
reach  himself,  as  when  he  reckoned  too  confidently  and 
risked  too  much  on  Italy  to  complete  his  triple  alliance, 
and  on  a  subservient  Belgium  and  an  inactive  England, 
later  to  find  himself  unable  to  move  backward  or  forward, 
but  only  to  stand  and  see  his  brilliant  anticipations  fall  in 
ruins  about  him. 

An  age  of  gold  succeeding  an  age  of  iron,  then  back  to 
brute  force  again  until  the  universe  grows  hazy,  and  the 
source  of  power, — does  it  come  from  the  skies  or  is  it 
found  in  the  fruitful  fields  of  pacific  peoples  ? 

Rising  unrefreshed  and  unenlightened  from  the  un 
fathomable  depths  of  Kantian  philosophy  to  the  more  open 
plain  of  Neitzsche,  on  which  the  present  war  propaganda 
was  planted  by  Treitschke  and  Bernhardi,  placing  power 
before  humanity  and  courage  before  charity,  and  over 
whelmed  by  superfluous  strength  and  mental  faculties  ab 
normally  active  in  making  men  and  machinery  for  death- 
dealing  purposes,  perhaps  the  most  charitable  construction 
we  can  place  on  the  course  of  the  Germans,  their  ethics 
and  their  abnormities,  in  the  prosecution  of  this  war  would 
be  to  credit  the  rulers  and  professors  with  some  slight 
mental  aberration.  At  all  events  the  Teutonic  quality  of 
mind  and  morals,  of  evolution  and  progress,  expressed  in 
the  word  kultur,  however  regarded  in  Germany,  would 
among  the  thoughtful  people  of  America  be  called  if  not 
vicious  at  least  delirious.  We  could  not  imagine,  for  ex- 


414  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS* 

ample,  a  niaii  in  his  right  mind,  as  is  told  of  the  emperor, 
wondering  why  the  United  States  does  not  capture  Canada, 
now  that  the  opportunity  offers!  ''World  power  or  noth 
ing!"  is  the  pretentious  cry  of  German  arrogance.  Then 
let  it  be  nothing. 

That  Germany  will  ever  realize  her  dreams  of  universal 
empire  is  unthinkable.  Then,  if  that  is  so,  it  is  equally 
impossible  for  her  to  come  victorious  out  of  this  war,  for 
the  one  implies  the  other.  It  requires  no  prophet  to  see 
that  this  Prussian  craze  has  got  to  be  crushed,  and  will  be 
though  it  should  take  ten  or  twenty  years  for  its  accomplish 
ment.  Not  that  the  destruction  or  dismemberment  of 
Germany,  a  fate  such  as  she  would  inflict  upon  others, 
must  follow,  but  that  Prussian  militarism  must  be  utterly 
uprooted  as  a  social  and  political  cancer. 

Of  the  divine  mission,  the  right  of  inherited  rulership, 
the  alleged  vicegerency  of  Almighty  God,  and  the  boasted 
kultur,  deep  conscience,  and  high  morale  of  William,  em 
peror  of  Germany,  the  story  of  this  war  will  ever  stand  as 
a  bright  example.  And  for  his  epitaph  let  it  be  written, 
He  murdered  some  millions  of  men  and  women  and  chil 
dren;  he  also  murdered  national  honor,  civil  rights  and 
humaneness. 

Thus  far  America  has  profited  but  little  from  the  world's 
wars,  but  has  suffered  loss  and  disturbance.  The  tide  will 
turn,  however,  in  time,  for  the  country  at  large  perhaps 
in  one  or  two  years;  for  California  it  may  be  in  five  or 
fif  ty  years.  For  we  may  be  sure  that  the  great  ocean  was 
made  for  some  important  purpose,  and  the  planting  of  its 
shores  with  inexhaustible  wealth  was  for  the  furtherance 
of  that  purpose.  It  is  equally  certain  that  around  the 
waters  of  San  Francisco  bay  will  one  day  appear  a  World 
Centre  of  Industry,  its  advent  soon  it  is  possible,  but  more 
likely  not  until  the  present  generation  has  passed  away 
and  another  quality  of  manhood  appears.  For  we  know 
that  ever  the  star  of  empire  has  been  westward,  and  that 


THE    WAR   IN    EUROPE  415 

the  ultimate  west  having  been  attained,  here  the  star  rests  j 
but  still  it  shines,  for  here  is  to  be  wrought  out  man's  full 
and  final  destiny. 

Already  the  world's  financial  centre  has  moved  from 
London  to  New  York.  Already  a  midcontinent  world 
centre  of  industry  is  seen  at  and  around  Chicago,  whose 
boast  is  the  largest  output  of  each  of  half  a  thousand  useful 
things,  and  whence  it  is  but  a  single  leap  to  San  Francisco 
bay  and  the  broadest  and  most  opulent  of  oceans.  Neither 
the  climate  nor  the  economic  advantages  of  this  favored 
spot  have  thus  far  been  fully  appreciated ;  let  us  hope  that 
the  many  thousands  of  constant  visitors  may  see  things  as 
they  are  and  carry  away  true  and  proper  impressions 
thereof. 

While  the  Panama  canal  was  in  course  of  construction 
there  was  scarcely  a  Tsea  or  a  river  port  that  did  not  expect 
great  and  immediate  benefits  therefrom.  Some  were  dis 
appointed.  We  should  know  by  now  that  few  are  enriched 
without  effort  by  any  war,  exposition,  or  canal.  Many  places 
can  offer  some  special  advantage  for  commerce  and  manu 
factures,  but  there  is  no  place  that  offers  all  the  advantages 
for  a  World  Centre  of  Industry  equal  to  San  Francisco  bay. 

Centrally  situated  on  the  border  of  the  great  ocean, 
held  to  this  day  for  the  more  intelligent  exploitation  by 
civilized  man,  and  aggregating  with  its  prolific  shores  and 
enchanting  isles  a  coast  line  of  more  than  35,000  miles  in 
extent,  this  port  has  immediately  tributary  half  the  world, 
the  other  half  being  easily  reached  through  the  Panama 
canal.  Around  the  vast  amphitheatre  of  the  Pacific,  and 
extending  inland  hundreds  or  thousands  of  miles  are  metal  - 
veined  mountains  and  alluvial  plains  which  have  as  yet  been 
scarcely  disturbed  by  the  hand  of  civilized  man. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  under  the  snows  of  Alaska,  in  the 
great  mountain  ranges  that  stretch  thence  southward  to 
and  far  beyond  the  tropics,  and  in  the  fertile  soils  of  the 
more  habitable  parts,  whose  opulent  cities  bear  testimony 
to  their  natural  resources,  there  lies  more  uncovered  wealth 


416  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

than  has  yet  been  brought  to  light  by  all  the  nations  of 
all  time. 

And  the  availability  of  it  all  at  our  industrial  centre, 
and  our  advantages  in  handling  it!  Cheap  electric  power 
from  the  Sierra,  oil  piped  from  the  wells  to  our  favored 
port,  cotton  from  the  Imperial  valley  and  all  the  way  to 
Texas,  wool  from  the  north,  wood  and  coal  from  the  coast 
beyond,  while  from  every  part  of  the  broad  Pacific  at 
moderate  cost,  say  from  three  to  five  dollars  a  ton,  raw 
material  of  every  sort,  all  animal  and  plant  products,  all 
minerals  and  metals  wrought  out  in  the  laboratories  of 
nature  during  the  countless  ages  of  the  earth's  existence, 
may  be  brought  to  San  Francisco  bay,  there  to  be  recreated 
by  arts  and  industries,  and  thence  distributed  throughout 
the  world  in  forms  best  benefitting  the  use  of  man. 

Then  the  food  conditions  and  cost  of  living;  plenty  to 
eat  at  moderate  expense;  house  rents  reasonable;  healthful 
airs  filtering  through  the  snowy  mountains  and  swept  in 
from  the  sea;  no  malaria,  no  indigenous  diseases,  no  freez 
ing  cold  in  winter  nor  uncomfortable  heat  in  summer.  In 
deed,  the  climate  of  San  Francisco,  perfect  in  its  way, 
whether  as  an  industrial  asset  or  a  resort  for  health  and 
pleasure  is  just  beginning  to  receive  proper  recognition. 
To  delightful  surroundings  are  given  many  benefits, — cool 
bracing  air,  average  temperature  varying  between  55°  and 
70° ;  fewer  casualties  than  may  be  found  on  any  other  spot 
of  earth;  no  slaying  by  sunstrokes  or  lightning;  no  floods, 
cyclones,  or  blizzards;  and  as  for  the  earthquake  bugaboo, 
it  is  an  historical  fact  that  more  lives  have  been  lost  from 
heat  in  one  day  on  the  eastern  coast,  or  from  midcontinent 
river  overflows,  than  from  all  the  earthquakes  that  ever 
happened  in  California  of  which  there  is  any  record  or 
tradition,  be  it  for  a  thousand  years  back. 

The  bay  itself  is  a  matchless  body  of  water,  sixty  miles 
long  and  from  four  to  six  miles  wide,  and  beautiful  beyond 
description,  whether  in  the  purple  haze  of  early  morning 
or  glowing  under  a  noonday  sun.  The  several  large  islands, 


THE    WAR   IN   EUROPE  417 

with  the  Presidio  reservation,  are  held  by  the  government 
for  soldier 's  quarters  and  purposes  of  defense.  The  borders 
of  bay  and  islands,  with  indentations  and  tributary  straits 
and  rivers,  give  300  linear  miles  or  more  all  ready  for  fac 
tories  and  warehouses  with  ocean  vessels  on  one  side  and 
railway  trains  on  the  other.  All  the  leading  countries  of 
the  world  have,  or  will  have,  their  own  lines  of  steamships 
running  direct  to  San  Francisco,  lines  from  China,  Japan, 
Australia,  South  America,  and  from  Europe  through  the 
Panama  canal,  while  daily  scores  of  railway  trains  depart 
for  every  near  and  distant  point. 

Few  will  deny  that  manufactures  are  essential  to  the 
prosperity  of  a  nation,  that  never  was  a  country  perma 
nently  rich  without  manufactures  and  never  was  a  country 
permanently  poor  with  manufactures.  A  land  poor  from 
lack  of  natural  products  may  become  rich  by  utilizing  the 
products  of  other  lands  and  adding  to  their  value  by  in 
telligent  labor  and  distribution  to  parts  where  most  needed. 

Exports  and  imports  are  quoted  as  indicative  of  national 
prosperity.  Perhaps  less  of  each  would  be  better  if  home 
industry  were  stimulated  thereby.  It  is  the  export  of  manu 
factured  goods  that  indicates  permanent  prosperity,  not 
the  export  of  raw  material.  Therefore  the  first  advantage 
to  be  derived  by  the  United  States  from  the  war  in  Europe 
is  in  checking  the  exportation  of  raw  material,  thus  com 
pelling  industrial  development  at  home.  It  is  only  of 
secondary  importance  that  the  markets  of  the  world  are 
left  open  to  us  while  the  Europeans  are  busily  employed  in 
the  most  destructive  of  games. 

Spain  by  internal  development  became  the  greatest  of 
nations;  but  when  gold  began  to  flow  in  freely  from  the 
New  World  she  found  it  easier  to  buy  than  to  make ;  now 
look  at  her !  Therefore,  we  may  safely  say  that  those  who 
will  profit  most  by  the  European  war  are  not  the  growers 
of  cotton  nor  even  of  food  products,  but  those  who  make 

14 


418  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

needful  articles  and  send  forth  competent  agents  to  open 
channels  of  permanent  trade. 

This  is  our  opportunity,  there  is  nothing  that  can  be 
made  elsewhere  in  the  world  that  cannot  be  made  at  San 
Francisco.  The  moment  the  European  war  is  over  there 
will  be  a  rush  to  set  their  mills  in  motion  again,  when 
American  gains  will  receive  a  check.  Manufactures  at 
the  present  time  in  Europe  are  nearly  destroyed.  Raw 
material  at  present  is  not  wanted  there  so  much  as  manu 
factured  goods,  and  manufactured  goods  we  cannot  get 
from  there  if  we  would ;  so  that  the  double  benefit  is  thrust 
upon  us,  that  while  building  upon  our  own  resources  to 
the  utmost  advantage  the  opportunity  is  afforded  us  of 
establishing  permanent  trade  with  all  the  world.  And 
unless  America  adopts  some  more  effective  and  aggressive 
industrial  policy  than  has  yet  appeared  Germany,  when 
once  the  war  is  over,  will  soon  regain  her  lost  advantages 
and  drive  competitors  from  the  field,  because  young  Ger 
mans  are  willing  to  learn  more  and  work  harder  than 
others,  depending  for  success  more  on  their  own  strength 
and  ability  than  on  the  weakness  of  competitors,  while 
refusing  labor  limitations  or  any  interference  in  their 
affairs  by  the  pirates  of  industry. 

Thus  endowed  by  nature  and  opportunity  to  assume 
and  maintain  the  industrial  supremacy  of  the  world  the 
discerning  mind  cannot  but  perceive  that  there  is  some 
thing  wrong  somewhere,  that  San  Francisco  has  thus  far 
failed  to  see  or  make  avail  of  her  high  privileges,  and  that 
with  all  her  natural  advantages  California  is  not  in  the 
way  of  profiting  as  largely  as  she  might  from  the  Panama 
canal  and  the  war  in  Europe. 

Instead  of  manufacturing  for  others  we  do  not  even 
manufacture  to  any  great  extent  for  ourselves,  but  draw 
largely  for  our  requirements  from  the  east  and  middle 
west.  Of  the  many  million  dollars  worth  of  orders  now 
beginning  to  come  in  from  Europe  the  Pacific  coast  gets 
but  few,  and  will  receive  in  the  future  less  rather  than 


THE    WAR   IN    EUROPE  419 

more  unless  we  make  more  of  the  articles  we  would  sell. 
Apart  from  horticulture  we  cannot  claim  for  California 
an  agricultural  state  of  the  first  class ;  our  products  in  the 
mouths  of  starving  millions  are  luxuries  rather  than  nec 
essities,  even  our  dried  fruit  being  a  drug  in  the  market 
and  unremunerative  to  the  grower,  while  wheat,  once  our 
chief  product,  but  which  now  the  worn-out  soil  refuses  to 
grow  extensively  without  better  farming,  soars  high  in  all 
the  marts  of  the  world. 

Our  commerce  too,  in  the  absence  of  staple  products 
and  manufactured  articles  to  ship  away  must  remain 
moderate.  Foreign  commerce  is  a  nation's  road  to  great 
ness,  but  it  is  not  greatness  itself.  Merely  the  handling 
and  transporting  of  goods  is  work  for  the  crossroads.  The 
commerce  that  counts  is  in  the  sale  and  transportation  of 
home  manufactured  articles,  not  in  sending  cotton  abroad 
to  buy  back  in  cloth. 

There  is  no  profit  in  pretense.  No  responsive  thrill 
rises  in  the  breast  of  an  experienced  merchant  or  manu 
facturer  at  the  cries  of  " Boost!  Boost!"  "Have  a  buy 
ing  day!"  "Buy  it  now!"  The  shop-window  petticoat 
marked  $4.98  does  not  strike  him  as  a  dollar  less  than  $5 
in  price.  Nor  do  the  words  "croaker,"  "knocker,"  "pes 
simist,"  have  any  terrors  for  him.  No  one  knows  better 
than  he  that  factories  are  not  operated  on  empty  air,  and 
that  meetings  and  organizations  for  the  promotion  of 
manufactures  where  no  provision  is  made  for  operatives 
of  a  quality  and  at  a  wage  which  will  enable  our  factories 
to  compete  with  those  of  other  nations,  meetings  where 
the  too  timid  members  dare  not  even  speak  the  words 
"cheap  labor"  are  misleading  and  futile. 

Let  those  who  will  hitch  their  wagon  to  a  star;  if  not 
securely  fastened,  and  you  are  wise,  you  will  let  the  other 
fellow  get  in  and  ride.  Boost  and  bright  optimism  are 
pitfalls  unless  arising  from  actual  conditions  and  sus 
tained  by  good  business  sense.  In  business  and  boost  as 
elsewhere  truth  is  stronger  than  fiction.  If  the  plain  facts 


420  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

regarding  the  superlative  advantages  of  San  Francisco 
bay  as  a  World  Centre  of  Industry  do  not  appeal  to  the 
hard-headed  man  of  affairs  it  is  useless  resorting  to  clap 
trap. 

We  should  have  on  this  coast  100  woolen  mills,  1000 
cotton  mills,  and  5000  other  factories,  and  will  have  some 
day,  these  or  their  equivalent,  but  only  when  conditions 
appeal  to  capital,  and  mill-owners  are  free  to  manage 
their  business  their  own  way,  yet  always  within  the  bounds 
of  humanity  and  healthful  progress,  but  without  inter 
ference  from  interlopers  of  whatsoever  kind  or  quality. 

In  a  loose- jointed  republican  government  extremes 
often  meet.  As  between  the  dregs  of  low  society  and  the 
chaff  of  high  society  there  is  little  to  choose.  The  inter 
mediate  class  is  the  commonwealth,  those  who  work, 
either  with  hands  or  head;  those  who  do  things,  either 
with  money  or  brain.  Work  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the 
world;  God's  curse,  man's  redemption;  the  Creator's 
primal  punishment,  man's  greatest  blessing.  Work  is 
civilization,  and  civilization  is  humanity  reinforced.  The 
Panama  canal  and  the  California  expositions  are  the 
apotheosis  of  labor,  not  the  apotheosis  of  the  manipulators 
of  labor.  A  workless  world  is  savagery,  and  the  workless 
part  of  society  is  the  worst  part.  Wherefore  as  God's 
best  gift,  though  given  us  in  anger,  we  hail  it  as  divine, 
and  place  it  high  above  principalities  and  powers. 

The  workingman  of  to-day  is  the  concrete  expression  of 
that  form  of  labor  which  bore  the  primal  curse  for  some 
several  thousand  years,  whether  as  the  slave  of  brute 
force  or  as  the  creature  of  capital,  but  which  now  in  the 
more  advanced  countries  has  fairly  well  emancipated 
itself.  Then  gradually  arose  apostles  of  chicane  and  greed, 
who  gained  ascendency  over  the  workingman  to  exploit 
him.  Thus  was  invented  and  applied  coercive  measures, 
nominally  for  the  benefit  of  the  laborer,  but  really  to 
strengthen  the  position  of  the  walking  delegate,  as  strikes 


THE    WAR   IN   EUROPE  421 

and  incendiarism,  the  boycott  blackmail  and  unionism; 
later  came  dynamite  as  the  ultimate  appeal. 

While  the  walking  delegate  himself  did  no  work,  he 
fared  sumptuously  every  day  upon  the  work  of  others. 
Contributions  and  crimes  were  imposed.  Dues  were  levied 
and  arbitrary  rules  established;  no  American  boy  might 
learn  a  trade  even  of  his  own  father  without  obtaining 
permission  and  paying  for  it;  any  respectable  citizen  in 
the  legitimate  pursuit  of  his  calling  might  for  purposes 
of  coercion  or  revenge  be  brought  to  annoyance  or  ruin 
by  means  of  the  infamous  boycott. 

There  is  in  nearly  every  large  city  a  coterie  of  nonde 
scripts  who  do  not  work  but  who  live  from  the  work  of 
others;  who  exploit  the  workingman  ostensibly  for  his 
good  but  in  reality  for  their  own  selfish  purposes;  who 
fill  the  minds  of  their  proteges  with  false  notions,  insur 
rectionary  and  un-American, — that  they  have  rights  which 
others  do  not  possess,  that  they  have  claims  on  their  fellow 
men  which  are  not  reciprocal,  and  of  which  their  neigh 
bors  are  endeavoring  to  deprive  them.  To  maintain  these 
alleged  rights  they  are  justified  in  resorting  to  any  means, 
legal  or  otherwise,  even  to  coercion  and  crime;  in  defense 
of  which  incendiary  claims  before  the  facile  courts  they 
employ  lawyers,  paid  large  fees  from  the  pockets  of  the 
workingmen,  and  who  hesitate  not  at  subornation  and  per 
jury. 

Called  by  various  names,  as  walking  delegate,  boss, 
sponge,  demagogue,  labor  leader,  exploiter  of  the  working- 
man,  the  toilers,  as  the  press-panderers  sanctimoniously 
call  them,  are  coddled  until,  deprived  of  their  natural  man 
liness  they  become  as  children  in  the  hands  of  designing 
men.  Unions  are  formed  and  the  rights  of  others  invaded. 
Business  men  and  a  pliant  newspaper  press  submit  to  im 
pudent  and  unjust  demands  in  the  management  of  their 
affairs,  fearing  loss  of  patronage ;  judges,  office-holders,  all 
who  live  by  the  ballot  acquiescing,  for  labor  has  votes  to 
dispose  of.  In  this  way  labor  becomes  a  trust,  a  monopoly, 


422  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

all  the  work  is  given  at  a  high  wage  to  half  of  the  working- 
men,  the  other  half  being  left  laboiiess  to  starve.  Contract 
work,  in  definance  of  law  and  justice,  is  given  not  to  the 
lowest  bidder,  but  to  unionism. 

As  often  as  otherwise,  in  the  arrogance  of  ignorance, 
the  labor  leaders  resort  to  measures  unfavorable  to  labor, 
as  defeating  any  measure  for  the  public  benefit  if  thereby 
they  can  pose  as  champions  of  labor ;  making  the  wage  of 
class  work  equal,  regardless  of  the  worth  or  efficiency  of 
individual  workers;  advancing  the  labor  wage  until  it  be 
comes  prohibitory  to  industry,  resulting  in  non-employ 
ment  and  high  cost  of  living.  Thinking  to  gain  votes 
thereby  they  refused  to  grant  music  lovers  the  privilege 
of  erecting  a  million  dollar  opera-house,  not  at  public  ex 
pense  but  at  their  own  cost,  thus  withholding  from  the 
pockets  of  the  proteges  their  part  of  the  expenditure, 
and  leaving  in  the  civic  centre  the  unsightly  scar  of  a 
vacant  lot  where  might  now  stand  a  beautiful  edifice. 
They  promulgate  the  false  doctrine  not  of  their  right  to 
work,  which  no  one  denies  them,  but  their  right  to  demand 
that  the  government,  that  is  to  say  their  fellow-citizens 
shall  provide  them  with  work,  whether  necessary  or  profit 
able  or  not,  which  is  but  another  form  of  blackmail  lead 
ing  to  pauperism.  As  well  might  trade  demand  of  labor 
profitable  custom,  or  capital  a  good  investment. 

In  legislation  every  measure  affecting  patronage  is 
stoutly  opposed  that  does  not  give  labor  some  unfair  ad 
vantage,  some  special  and  unjust  privilege.  Every  advan 
tage  over  his  neighbor  is  his  right,  free  schools,  free 
hospitals,  courts,  and  penitentiaries,  while  paying  nothing 
for  the  support  of  the  government  that  protects  him  in 
his  infamies. 

The  aims  and  actions  of  the  labor  leaders  strike  at 
the  very  heart  of  American  liberty,  giving  to  one  class  the 
power  of  coercion  while  depriving  their  victims  of  any 
means  of  defense.  Thus  laziness  and  inefficiency  are  exalted 
as  meritorious;  to  do  the  least  possible  work  for  the  highest 


THE    WAR    IN    EUROPE  423 

pay  serves  right  his  natural  enemy  the  employer,  the  cap 
italist,  or  the  government.  The  further  fallacy  is  instilled 
that  restriction  by  law  to  a  short  day's  work  is  a  gain 
forced  from  the  employer,  when  in  truth  it  is  a  direct  loss 
to  the  workingman,  to  his  worth  to  himself  and  others, 
which  in  the  end  rules  all. 

The  right  to  work;  labor  demands  it  and  the  law  con 
cedes  it.  The  right  to  work;  unionism  demands  it  for 
itself,  but  denies  the  right  to  others,  the  law  winking 
acquiescence.  But  this  is  not  to  the  point.  Labor  leaders 
demand  for  their  proteges,  as  before  stated,  their  right  to 
demand  that  their  neighbor,  that  is  to  say  the  man  with 
money  or  the  government,  shall  furnish  him  with  work. 
Reverse  the  proposition,  say  that  the  workingman  shall 
supply  the  tradesman  with  customers,  the  lawyer  with 
clients,  and  the  banker  wjth  depositors  and  the  absurdity 
appears.  Unionism  demands  for  itself  the  special  privi 
leges  it  denies  to  others.  It  demands  that  all  the  work 
shall  be  given  to  half  the  laborers,  while  the  other  half 
is  left  to  starve.  It  demands  that  this  coterie  shall  have 
short  hours  and  high  pay,  and  enforces  its  demands  upon 
the  disobedient  by  means  of  blackmail  and  the  boycott, 
judges  who  are  elected  by  votes  sustaining  the  injustice. 
A  singular  state  of  things,  one-half  of  the  workingmen 
unemployed,  while  all  the  work  is  given  to  the  other  thalf  at 
an  exorbitant  wage,  a  wage  fatal  to  manufactures  and 
prohibitory  to  general  prosperity  and  progress.  Likewise 
the  non-reversible  absurdity  that  it  is  an  obligation  on  the 
part  of  one  class  of  citizens  to  furnish  another  class  with 
work,  that  is  to  say  with  support,  since  work  is  their 
support.  I  am  not  speaking  of  economic  policy  or  ethical 
obligations  but  only  of  the  lawless  arrogance  assumed  by 
unionism. 

Wealth  is  won  by  work,  by  work  and  economy.  The 
same  field  is  open  to  the  laborer  of  to-day,  the  same  oppor 
tunity  to  utilize  the  natural  and  economic  resources  of 
the  country  that  his  predecessors  had. 


424  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

Instead  of  making  avail  of  it  the  exploiters  of  labor 
prowl  around  to  secure  all  they  can  from  government,  that 
is  to  say  the  people  through  their  representatives  in  office 
who  live  on  votes,  and  from  capital,  that  is  to  say  from 
those  who  have  done  their  work  and  saved  up  the  proceeds. 
Another  fallacy, — to  give  the  laborer  more  time,  not  for 
the  beer-shops  but  for  home  enjoyment  and  mental  culture. 

The  intellectual  life  is  open  to  him  who  wants  it, 
whether  his  wage  is  three  or  six  dollars  a  day.  Intellec 
tual  loafing  is  not  intellectual  living,  the  former  being  the 
special  province  of  college  graduates  and  scions  of  wealth. 
Intellectual  boozing  is  another  sort  of  culture,  practised 
alike  by  club-men  and  hod-carriers.  Let  us  beware  of  an 
excess  of  kultur  and  conscience,  lest  we  fall  into  the  errors 
of  the  kaiser. 

There  are  classes  of  workers  and  there  are  grades  of 
work.  There  is  high  grade  work  that  does  and  should 
command  a  high  wage,  and  there  is  low  grade  work  that 
skilled  labor  will  not  touch,  and  which  can  be  done  only 
at  low  wage.  It  degrades  no  one, — you  cannot  degrade 
labor, — it  injures  no  one,  to  give  such  work  to  the  Asiatic, 
who  is  glad  to  get  it,  the  lowest  wage  in  America  being 
more  than  the  highest  wage  in  Asia.  We  can  never  have 
our  World  Centre  of  Industry  without  employing  some 
cheap  labor,  and  it  is  an  insane  policy  on  the  part  of  our 
government  in  excluding  it. 

No  one  objects  to  labor  unions,  but  only  their  abuse 
by  the  exploiters  of  the  workingmen.  No  one  objects  to 
unionism,  but  only  to  the  abuse  of  it.  If  unionism  cannot 
win  its  way  fairly  and  honestly  it  would  be  better  abol 
ished;  it  will  never  be  able  to  sustain  itself  by  violence. 
No  one  objects  that  labor  should  unionize,  but  only  that  it 
should  not  tyrannize.  Why  should  we  tamely  submit  to 
the  imposition  of  labor  any  more  than  to  the  imposition 
of  capital?  Labor  unions  for  the  pleasure  and  lawful 
benefit  of  the  members  is  one  thing,  and  to  this  no  one 
can  object;  unionism  as  manipulated  by  professional  over- 


THE    WAR   IN   EUROPE  425 

seers  for  the  exploitation  of  the  workingman  is  quite  an 
other  thing,  and  smacks  too  strongly  of  Prussian  militar 
ism  long  to  be  endured  in  America. 

The  government  is  quite  ready  to  restrict  capitalism 
but  balks  before  laborism.  Governmental  superintendence 
of  labor  is  as  necessary  as  governmental  superintendence 
of  capital, — and  more,  as  labor  has  more  votes  than  capital, 
and  an  excess  of  votes  is  a  fault  of  our  republican  govern 
ment. 

Labor  in  all  its  many  interests  and  activities,  as  unions, 
wages,  hours,  and  strikes  should  be  under  the  immediate 
control  of  the  government  and  managed  by  honest  and 
disinterested  officials  having  equally  at  heart  the  welfare 
of  the  workingman  and  the  interest  of  the  employer, — 
should  be  regulated  by  law  as  capital  is  regulated,  and 
not  left  to  the  exploiter  of  the  workingman  to  act  as  he 
pleases  in  definance  of  law  and  from  purely  selfish  motives. 
Little  by  little  they  are  undermining  the  government,  in 
serting  their  insidious  policy  in  the  laws  of  the  state  and 
nation,  only  like  the  railroad  incubus,  let  us  hope,  to  meet 
with  like  defeat  in  the  end,  when  the  people  return  to 
reason  and  to  right. 

In  no  department  of  economics  or  industry,  of  politics 
or  society  is  such  criminal  license  allowed,  such  defiance  of 
law,  equity,  and  decency  permitted  to  go  unpunished, 
unreproved,  as  that  practised  by  the  exploiters  of  the 
workingman.  That  they  should  be  permitted  by  the  boy 
cott  to  ruin  an  honest  tradesman,  in  the  legitimate  pursuit 
of  his  calling,  for  simply  maintaining  his  right  as  an 
American  freeman  to  manage  his  business  himself  instead 
of  allowing  others  to  do  it  for  him,  the  interloper  in  the 
meantime  being  protected  by  the  police  and  sustained  by 
the  courts  in  this  system  of  coercion  and  blackmail  is 
infamous. 

Thus  it  is  easily  seen  why  San  Francisco  is  not  more 
of  a  manufacturing  city.  Labor  is  as  essential  to  manu- 


426  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

factures  as  is  raw  material.  If  labor  and  material  cannot 
be  had  at  a  fair  and  reasonable  price  home  industry  is 
doomed.  Again  be  it  said,  the  first  consideration  for  this 
country  is  manufactures,  the  first  consideration  for  manu 
factures  is  labor  at  a  fair  price,  the  first  consideration  for 
labor  is  absolute  freedom,  emancipation  from  any  sort  of 
tyranny.  This  is  the  broad  road  to  permanent  prosperity 
and  there  is  none  other. 

And  from  the  government,  to  which  all  good  citizens 
look  for  redress,  we  get  no  help,  for  judges  and  rulers,  all 
who  live  by  the  ballot-box,  legislative  and  executive  dig 
nitaries  as  well  as  the  vicious  grafter  of  the  municipality, 
are  infected  by  the  same  hunger  for  office,  and  by  the 
itching  palm  that  actuates  and  makes  fat  the  exploiters 
of  the  workingman  and  fills  the  coffers  of  the  highly 
honorable  and  respected  man  of  affairs. 

It  is  all  very  well,  however,  to  rail  at  the  government; 
the  fault  is  our  own;  it  lies  with  those  who  prefer  money 
to  morality,  who  prefer  personal  profit  to  the  purity  of 
the  commonwealth,  who  prefer  ill-gotten  gain  to  honesty 
and  decency,  who  prefer  in  courts  judges  who  wink  at 
wealth  never  forgetting  whence  are  to  come  the  votes  to 
secure  their  reelection, — who  will  submit  to  insult  and 
interference  rather  than  forego  profit,  in  a  word  the  fault 
lies  with  the  influential  members  of  the  community  who 
are  too  indifferent  or  too  timid  to  arise  and  purge  their 
city  of  its  defilement. 

The  trouble  is  that  too  many  of  us  prefer  bad  govern 
ment  to  good,  prefer  pliant  tools  in  office  to  men  we  cannot 
buy,  prefer  slavish  labor  whose  votes  we  can  control  to 
manly  citizenship  in  our  workingmen,  prefer  a  small  in 
iquitous  personal  gain  to  the  honor  and  interests  of  a 
great  commonwealth.  And  withal  over  this  small  personal 
gain  which  we  so  jealously  guard  we  are  great  cowards, 
the  best  of  us  even  not  daring  to  speak  from  our  hearts, 
as  was  shown  at  an  election  the  other  day  when  over  a 
score  of  evil  measures  put  forth  by  the  exploiters  of  the 


THE    WAR   IN    EUROPE  427 

workingman,  not  a  word  was  spoken  against  them  while 
under  discussion  before  election,  but  at  the  polls  they  were 
defeated  by  a  majority  of  three  or  five  to  one. 

To  all  this,  however,  there  is  a  brighter  side.  These 
evils  will  pass  as  all  evil  passes.  Nowhere  are  found  finer 
specimens  of  liberal  and  chivalrous  manhood  than  here. 
Ever  since  gold-digging  days  California  has  been  proud 
of  her  people,  and  her  people  have  been  proud  of  Cali 
fornia. 

Though  with  some  money  is  preferred  before  morality, 
and  bribable  office-holders  to  honest  men,  these  are  not 
San  Francisco;  her  citizens  are  much  better  than  the 
average,  more  honest,  more  courteous,  more  progressive. 
It  is  a  city  full  of  joy  and  pleasure,  wealthy  and  laud 
ably  ambitious,  and  prosperous  to  a  certain  extent  in 
spite  of  drawbacks  which  let  us  hope  are  only  temporary. 

And  yet  more.  There  will  come  a  time  when  this 
American  soil  will  grow  men  free  from  that  inordinate 
craving  for  office,  that  love  of  power  and  political  plunder 
which  is  the  curse  of  this  republican  government,  tend 
ing  as  it  does  to  degrade  mind  and  morals  and  to  sacrifice 
the  highest  intellectual  gifts  upon  the  altar  of  expedi 
ency.  There  will  come  a  time  when  on  these  shores  of 
the  Pacific  there  will  be  grown  a  race  of  men  with  loftier 
ideals  concerning  man  and  his  destiny  than  any  which 
have  yet  appeared,  men  who  will  value  the  honor  and 
dignity  of  their  country  above  any  personal  advantage, 
and  will  have  too  high  a  regard  for  labor  to  permit  the 
true  interest  of  the  various  classes  of  workingmen  to  be 
wrecked  by  suicidal  policies. 

Then,  too,  will  have  passed  Prussian  militarism,  the 
underlying  principle  of  kaiser  kultur,  the  dementia  of 
Treitschke  and  Neitzsche  and  Eucken,  the  deification  of 
force,  of  brute  force  and  brutishness,  the  deification  of 
dishonor,  of  treachery,  of  robbery  and  murder,  the  basis  of 
Teutonic  conscience  and  morale,  an  Acheron  stream  bear- 


428  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

ing  upon  its  surface  pretended  purity  and  progress  to  the 
ennobling  and  redemption  of  the  nations, — militarism,  a 
memory  to  be  recalled  with  horror. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

CRYSTALLIZED  CIVILIZATION 

SOME  time  after  the  publication  of  my  brochure  Why 
a  World  Centre  of  Industry  at  San  Francisco  Bay? 
hereinafter  to  be  mentioned,  I  received  a  communication 
from  the  eminent  author  Soterios  Nicholson,  advocating 
Athens  as  a  suitable  site  for  a  World  City  of  Civilization. 

11 A  world  centre  of  scientific  and  philosophical  re 
search,"  Paul  Adam  calls  it,  "  where  the  most  notable 
scholars,  in  possession  of  new  ideas,  can  readily  experiment 
the  value  of  the  hypothesis  constructed  either  by  them 
selves  or  by  their  disciples.  A  centre  wherein  a  world 
record  could  be  kept  of  the  entire  range  of  the  progressive 
imagination  of  man,  and  where  nothing  usefully  conceived 
by  the  human  brain  would  be  lost.  A  centre  from  which 
economic  and  practical  knowledge  would  flow  to  all  parts 
of  the  world.  A  centre  and  a  city  outside  of  all  historical 
and  social  quarrels,  of  all  economic  and  national  rivalries, 
a  centre  belonging  without  possible  exception  to  all. ' ' 

The  arguments  of  Mr  Nicholson  are  eminently  sound 
and  ably  presented,  but  his  plan  and  purpose  "to  house 
international  interests  and  unite  peoples  and  nations  for 
the  attainment  of  peace  and  progress  upon  broader  human 
itarian  lines"  are  somewhat  ideal,  while  in  a  World  Centre 
of  Industry  I  endeavored  to  present  only  that  which  is 
essentially  plain,  simple,  and  practical. 

Mr  Nicholson  says  that:  "The  project  of  creating  a 
world-centre  of  communication  and  progress,  as  suggested 
very  recently  by  a  distinguished  master  of  the  arts,  Mr 
Hendrik  Andersen,  deserves  the  most  serious  attention  on 

429 


430  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

the  part  of  every  thinking  man.  We  are  invited  to  erect 
a  permanent  general  shelter  for  humanity's  best  achieve 
ments,  and  a  meeting-place  for  humanity's  best  minds. 
Amidst  all  the  horrors  of  warfare  and  manifestations  of 
mutual  enmity  among  the  nations,  amidst  all  the  distinc 
tions  of  creeds  and  languages,  and  the  divisions  of  states 
and  of  races,  the  fundamental  fact  of  the  spiritual  unity  of 
the  human  race  asserts  itself  unvanquished.  Civilization 
has  historically  been  a  collective  rather  than  an  individual 
istic  product,  and  with  the  lapse  of  time,  it  is  increasingly 
becoming  a  thing  measured  essentially  in  terms  of  social 
values  and  interests.  As  a  fitting  testimonial  to  the  supreme 
truth  of  the  solidarity  of  man,  and  as  a  useful  instrument 
in  the  making  manifest,  and  in  the  practical  realization  of 
this  same  truth,  the  significance  of  a  world-city  would 
be  undeniable.  The  question  at  once  presents  itself  as  to 
the  locality  of  the  proposed  city  and  facilities  for  its  erec 
tion,  but  before  we  take  up  this  very  important  point,  it 
might  contribute  to  a  better  understanding  of  the  issues 
involved,  if  we  prefaced  our  remarks  with  a  consideration 
of  the  reasons  which  make  the  establishment  of  a  world- 
city  necessary  and  advantageous. 

"A  City  of  Civilization,  we  have  said,  a  city  which  will 
house  the  choice  fruits  of  human  progress,  and  furnish 
opportunities  for  still  better  fruition.  But  what  is  civiliza 
tion;  wherein  has  the  progress  of  humanity  consisted? 
Equipped  with  the  simplest  rudiments  of  knowledge  man 
has  slowly  and  painfully  started  on  his  way,  through  mazes 
of  perplexity,  competing  against  obstacles  and  failure,  shad 
owed  by  discouragement  and  confronted  with  the  ruthless- 
ness  and  frequent  hostility  of  the  forces  of  human  nature 
—man,  we  say,  since  the  time  when  the  first  spark  of  in 
tellect  illuminated  that  vessel  of  clay,  has  proceeded  on 
ward.  But  what  has  been  his  goal  ?  Has  there  really  been 
any  objective  toward  which  his  movements  were  directed, 
a  shining  beacon-light  to  guide  him  on  his  path,  a  precious 


CRYSTALLIZED    CIVILIZATION  431 

prize  for  the  attainment  of  which  he  has  been  concentrating 
his  efforts? 

"The  most  striking  fact  observed  is  man's  struggle 
against  nature.  Nature,  on  the  one  hand,  is  a  force,  or 
rather  a  group  of  forces,  unflinching  and  irresistible ;  man 
on  the  other  hand  is  weak  and  helpless  in  respect  of  phys 
ical  power.  But  man  is  intelligent  and  man  may  use  nature. 

"We  need  a  headquarters  for  the  army  of  humanity 
where  the  general  staff  should  hold  its  sittings,  a  capital 
city  of  the  world,  a  spot  where  all  our  energies  should 
receive  their  fundamental  direction,  a  focal  point  to  which 
all  roads  will  lead,  from  which  all  roads  will  start.  In  other 
words,  we  need  an  international  city  to  serve  as  a  pivot  both 
for  centripetal  and  centrifugal  operations.  This  world- 
centre  will  at  once  draw  unto  itself  results  of  experience 
and  labor,  correlate  and  systematize  them,  and  then  redis 
tribute  them  freely  to  humanity  at  large.  In  sum,  the 
world-city  would  be  a  great  centre  of  communication  in 
which  all  systems  of  transportation,  all  mechanisms  of 
international  exchange  will  converge.  Thus  it  will  house 
the  central  telegraph  cable,  wireless,  railroad,  ship  and 
postal  offices  of  the  world. 

"Let  us  consider  as  to  the  more  or  less  neutral  char 
acter  of  the  site  of  the  city,  neutral  in  a  moral  rather  than 
in  a  legal  respect.  In  other  words,  the  city  should  be  so 
situated  that  national  jealousies  be  not  excited  by  appear 
ance  of  partiality  in  its  selection,  of  favor  and  preference 
for  one  out  of  several  rival  nations.  In  this  first  step 
in  the  realization  of  the  scheme  extreme  care  and  tact  is 
called  for  in  order  that  the  flickering  light  of  international 
sentiment  be  not  put  through  unnecessary  mistakes.  The 
world-city  should  be  capable  of  calling  out  the  enthusiasm 
and  love  of  men  from  every  race  and  nation  in  equal  degree, 
and  this  will  not  become  true  unless  all  occasion  for  arous 
ing  feelings  of  jealousy  among  rival  peoples  be  sedulously 
avoided. 

"The  geographical  considerations  involve  questions  of 


432  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

fitness  of  climate  and  situation,  as  such  and  with  respect 
to  other  countries.  Since  the  city  will  attract  travellers 
from  all  over  the  world,  and  since  inflow  and  outflow  will 
be  uninterrupted,  the  location  of  the  city  must  be  such  as 
to  afford  excellent  facilities  of  transportation.  It  must 
be  so  situated  that  distance  from  the  various  centres  will 
be  equalized  and  it  should  further  be  connected  by  railroad 
and  steamship  lines  with  the  chief  centres  of  civilization. 
Since  the  city  will  serve  as  a  place  of  residence  as  well  as 
of  pilgrimage,  the  location  must  present  suitable  living 
conveniences,  both  in  the  climate  and  in  the  configuration  of 
the  soil.  It  must  possess  facilities  for  the  various  kinds 
of  natural  recreation,  in  the  form  of  bathing,  driving,  and 
walking,  and  such  climate  conditions  as  will  not  only  not 
undermine  the  health  of  the  residents  but  positively  sustain 
and  promote  it. 

"We  would  propose  the  state  of  Greece.  To  be  sure 
the  suggestion  is  not  original  with  us;  the  king  of  Italy, 
a  ruler  himself  of  one  of  the  great  powers,  has  expressed 
himself  in  favour  of  such  a  choice.  There  are  many  sites  in 
Greece  which  would  suggest  themselves  at  once  as  geo 
graphically  suitable  to  the  project  in  hand,  such  as  the 
islands  in  the  Aegean  and  Ionian  seas,  Corfu  especially, 
Olympia,  Corinth,  etc.  But  as  against  all  others,  we  would 
name  Athens  the  political  capital  of  Greece  now,  and  its 
intellectual  capital  since  of  old.  Athens,  the  mighty  seat 
of  Hellenic  culture  and  all  its  fair  daughters  throughout 
the  world.  What  advantages  does  Athens  offer  from  a 
geographical  point  of  view?  These  are  indeed  so  obvious  as 
hardly  to  need  mention. 

"Athens  is  situated  near  the  intersecting  point  of  the 
three  great  continents  which  made  it  the  ancient  world. 
Located  in  Europe,  it  almost  touches  the  fringes  of  Asia 
and  Africa.  Athens  is  ideally  located  as  a  point  of  com 
munication  between  the  Occident  and  the  Orient;  it  is  a 
point  of  exchange  for  the  material  and  spiritual  com- 


CRYSTALLIZED    CIVILIZATION  433 

modities  of  the  peoples,  a  meeting  point  of  ideals  from  the 
intellectual  antipodes  of  the  world. 

11  Athens  has  a  good  climate,  dry  in  the  degree  required 
for  the  maintenance  of  health,  with  a  clear  and  beautifully 
blue  sky,  plenty  of  attractive  suburbs  adjacently  situated, 
and  fascinating  coasts  to  serve  as  summer  resorts.  Fur 
thermore  it  provides  for  the  recreation  of  residents  and 
visitors  its  immense  stores  of  ancient  relics,  especially  the 
Acropolis  with  its  immortal  Parthenon,  and  in  larger  or 
lesser  proximity  the  almost  innumerable  sites  of  archeolog- 
ical  interest  studding  the  coast  and  inland,  such  as  Delphi, 
Olympia,  Corinth,  and  Delos.  The  visitors,  too,  and  the 
dwellers  in,  Athens  may  be  assured  of  pleasant  surround 
ings,  and  a  country  teeming  in  objects  which  would  satisfy 
the  most  fastidious  and  greedy  of  interests,  whether  purely 
intellectual  or  artistic  as  well. ' ' 

Other  sites  have  been  suggested,  as  The  Hague;  Ter- 
rueven,  near  Brussels ;  Montmorency,  near  Paris ;  in  Switz 
erland,  a  spot  near  Berne;  on  the  Riviera,  near  Frejus; 
on  the  Mediterranean,  near  Rome ;  and  on  the  coast  of  New 
Jersey.  Athens,  I  think  would  be  preferable  to  any  of  these 
for  Mr  Nicholson's  world's  city. 

But  for  a  World  Centre  of  Industry,  none  of  the  places 
herein  mentioned  would  answer  the  requirements  or  offer 
the  advantages  of  San  Francisco  Bay,  for  the  reason  more 
fully  set  forth  in  the  next  chapter.  Athens  is  old,  and 
scarcely  in  the  busy  world  at  all.  The  Mediterranean  has 
seen  its  best  days;  the  glory  of  the  gods  has  departed. 
Yet  for  spiritual  growth  and  intellectual  culture  there  is 
no  place  its  superior.  Athens  is  suitable  enough  for 
thought,  but  San  Francisco  is  best  for  action. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE  AT  SAN  FRANCISCO  BAY  ? 

WHY  should  there  be  in  lime  to  come  a  World  In 
dustrial  Centre  upon  the,  shores  of  San  Francisco 
Bay? 

Because  Nature  has  prepared  for  it,  Progress  ordains 
it,  and  History  confirms  it. 

Because  among  states  and  nations  California  has  a 
unique  individuality  which  is  sure  to  find  expression  as 
the  border  lands  of  the  Pacific  unfold  into  the  higher 
civilized  life. 

Because  wherever  is  situated  the  Centre  of  Industry 
there  will  be  found  the  Centre  of  Empire. 

Because  while  the  nations  of  Europe  with  their  Atlantic 
traffic  decline,  the  ports  of  the  Pacific  will  rise  into  prom 
inence  under  the  impulse  of  superior  development. 

Because  World  Supremacy  may  thus  be  placed  within 
reach  of  the  future  occupants  of  the  First  Port  of  the 
Pacific. 

Because  as  the  Orient  and  Occident  here  meet  geo 
graphically,  they  should  join  hands  commercially  as  well, 
products  from  East  and  West  standing  side  by  side  as  a 
World  Commercial  Clearing  House. 

Because  if  the  Centre  of  Industry  on  the  Pacific  is  not 
established  by  the  people  of  San  Francisco  Bay,  others 
elsewhere  will  occupy  the  field,  and  thenceforward  domi 
nate  the  great  ocean,  both  economically  and  politically. 

Because  Japan  has  already  made  distinctive  advance 
in  that  direction,  the  United  States  government  by  its 
impolicy  assisting. 

434 


WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE  ?     435 

Because  we  prefer  the  white  race  rather  than  the  yellow 
race  as  arbiters  of  our  destiny. 

And,  while  appreciating  beauty  as  an  economic  asset 
and  esthetic  culture  as  a  measure  of  civilization,  it  is  well 
to  bear  in  mind  that  to  develop  a  pretty  town  to  play  in 
is  not  industrialism. 

From  where  history  begins  people  wandered  forth,— 
from  the  banks  of  the  Nile  to  Arabia,  from  the  valley  of 
the  Euphrates  to  Persia  and  the  shores  of  the  Caspian 
and  Mediterranean.  A  stream  of  racial  siftings  set  in 
down  the  Persian  gulf,  and  sweeping  across  to  India, 
reached  the  farthest  east  on  the  western  border  of  the 
Pacific.  There,  isolated,  hidden  behind  a  wall  of  exclu- 
siveness,  preferring  peace  yet  not  thereby  escaping  war. 
development  languished;  the  people  became  inane,  apa 
thetic,  and  slumbered  millenniums  away,  until  at  the  pres 
ent  reawakening  of  the  world  let  us  hope  that  they  also  will 
awaken  to  a  realization  of  their  economic  potentialities 
and  take  their  proper  place  among  nations. 

Meanwhile,  in  and  around  this  hypothetical  cradle  of 
the  race  humanity  seethed  through  the  centuries  in  the 
effort  to  rise  superior  to  the  brute  creation,  and  succeeded 
in  so  far  as  to  establish  industrial  relations  and  build 
cities,  as  Thebes  and  Memphis,  Babylon  and  Nineveh, 
though  never  yielding  their  brute  love  of  blood-letting. 

One  after  another  each  centre  of  industry  became  a 
centre  of  empire.  When  factories  crowded  the  shores  of 
Phoenicia,  Tyre  and  Sidon  rose  to  prominence,  in  which 
Carthage  later  partook,  assuming  commercial  supremacy. 
India  supplied  cotton,  while  up  and  down  the  Nile  was  traf 
fic  in  cattle,  grain,  metals,  and  slaves.  Caravans  traversed 
the  deserts  between  west  and  east,  bringing  also  spoils 
from  the  interior  of  Africa,  lion  and  tiger  skins,  ostrich 
feathers  and  ivory.  The  cities  of  Greece  and  Italy  came 
into  the  light;  a  busy  commerce  filled  the  Mediterannean 


436  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

ports  with  the  varied  products  of  all  countries,  while  Con 
stantinople  developed  as  the  key  to  Europe  and  Asia. 

Venice,  rescued  from  the  sea,  what  with  fighting  Turks 
and  assisting  crusaders,  held  imperial  sway  for  a  thousand 
years,  until  Vasco  da  Gama  doubled  his  cape.  Rome  took 
her  turn  as  mistress  of  the  world.  The  Netherlands,  the 
Hanseatic  league,  and  other  places  and  influences  appeared 
and  disappeared  as  the  problems  of  progress  worked  them 
selves  out  among  the  children  of  men. 

Many  centres  of  commerce  have  arisen  at  various  times 
and  places  in  both  Europe  and  America.  Many  have  de 
clined  and  ceased  to  be  of  importance,  but  never  one  with 
out  cause.  Nizhni-Novgorod,  the  largest  commercial  fair 
ground  in  Russia,  has  maintained  the  supremacy  for  a 
thousand  years.  And  although  there  is  the  Volga,  on  the 
south,  with  1450  miles  open  to  steam  navigation,  with  the 
best  of  transportation  facilities  on  the  other  sides,  the  site 
is  not  to  be  compared  to  that  of  San  Francisco  bay. 

In  Central  and  South  America  are  notable  places  of  both 
early  and  later  days.  There  was  the  Panama  of  Vasco 
Nunez  and  Francisco  Pizarro,  as  well  as  the  Panama  of 
to-day  with  its  canal  to  guard. 

There  were  early  commercial  centres  in  Argentina, 
notably  along  the  3000  miles  of  road  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific,  half  of  it  being  at  an  altitude  of  12,000  feet. 
Over  this  road  passed  the  silver  of  Potosi  and  the  rich 
merchandise  from  across  the  Pacific,  bringing  into  prom 
inence  such  places  as  Buenos  Aires,  Salta,  La  Paz,  and 
Lima. 

While  the  world  centred  around  the  Mediterranean, 
the  Mediterranean  was  the  world,  with  its  blazing  barrier 
at  the  south  and  its  impenetrable  wall  of  ice  in  the  north. 
After  that  were  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific,  the  mind 
of  man  expanding  with  the  expanse  of  ocean. 

In  due  time  came  to  all  primitive  peoples  the  end ;  with 
the  rest  into  this  maelstrom  of  humanity  came  youth,  man 
hood,  old  age;  it  is  the  law, — and  death.  All  that  is  born 


WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE  ?     437 

must  die,  men  and  nations,  cults  and  cultures,  worlds  and 
systems  of  worlds.  So  died  primeval  Asia,  her  cities  buried 
under  their  own  debris,  her  once  fertile  plains  desolated 
as  by  the  destroying  angel,  1<  Living  dead  lands  watered  by  a 
dead  sea. 

Whereby  we  may  know  that  Europe  must  die,  and 
America.  All  will  pass  as  Asia  has  passed,  and  the  bril 
liant  cities  of  to-day  become  as  the  cities  of  the  Shinar 
plains.  Then  will  men  return  and  recover  the  waste  places, 
or  will  they  pass  away  altogether?  Even  now  the  decline 
of  Europe  may  be  at  hand;  who  can  tell?  Already  the 
throes  of  dissolution  appear.  And  as  in  kaiser  kultur 
and  blood-lust  the  acme  of  infamy  has  been  attained,  so 
the  summit  of  intellectual  development  may  have  been 
reached,  now  to  totter  and  fall  over  into  semi-insanity, 
as  displayed  in  this  most  insane  of  conflicts. 

For  if  Germany  wins  in  the  present  war,  England, 
France,  and  Italy  will  become  as  is  Belgium,  which  stands 
forever  as  a  specimen  of  kaiser  rule  and  kaiser  kultur. 
If  Germany  wins,  peace  propagandists  will  be  relegated 
to  the  chimney  corner,  for  America  then  must  fight  or 
become  like  China.  If  a  premature  peace,  then  will  follow 
a  period  preparatory  for  yet  greater  conflicts,  which  will 
be  the  beginning  of  the  end.  Europe  will  then  fall  into 
decay,  Germany,  like  Rome,  following  her  victims. 

We  will  not  believe  the  end  so  near,  yet  death,  always 
present,  seems  sudden  when  it  comes.  No  more  thought 
had  Sardanapalus  or  Nebuchadnezzar  than  has  Rothschild 
or  Rockefeller  to-day  of  being  spoiled  of  their  possessions 
and  turned  out  to  grass. 

The  decline  of  ancient  culture  in  Asia  was  followed 
later  by  the  lapse  of  Europe  into  the  Dark  Age,  when 
men  revelled  in  ignorance  and  brutism  to  their  hearts' 
content  for  another  thousand  years,  light  finally  coming 
in  from  the  uncovering  of  a  New  World  in  the  west. 

For  while  yet  the  dark  age  enveloped  Europe,  the  leaven 
of  progress  working  in  men's  minds  presented  a  round 


438  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

moving  earth,  which  if  true  offered  a  western  way  to  the 
eastern  India  of  Mandeville  and  Marco  Polo.  And  as  the 
borders  of  the  Mediterranean  world  enlarged,  the  hitherto 
timid  mariners,  creeping  forth  from  the  pillars  of  Hercules, 
no  longer  hugged  the  coast  at  either  hand  but  struck  boldly 
out  upon  the  Sea  of  Darkness. 

And  from  that  day  to  this, — indeed  we  may  say  from 
the  beginning,  the  course  of  empire  has  ever  been  west 
ward,  following  the  pathway  of  the  sun, — from  Asia  to 
eastern  Europe,  from  eastern  Europe  to  western  Europe, 
from  Europe  to  America  and  across  the  continent, 
metropolitan  cities  marking  the  way, — Palmyra  Alexandria 
and  Athens,  Venice  Rome  Paris  and  London,  New  York 
Chicago  San  Francisco.  Thus  slowly  through  scores  of 
centuries  the  stream  of  progress  has  continued  its  way, 
never  deviating  from  its  course  until  its  ultimate  and  inev 
itable  end  should  be  attained  on  the  shore  of  the  Pacific  at 
San  Francisco  bay,  where  the  new  west  faces  the  old  east, 
and  where  ready  at  hand  are  all  the  requisites  for  high 
achievement. 

Glancing  thus  at  the  incipient  stages  of  economic  de 
velopment,  and  following  the  trend  of  civilization  to  its 
logical  limit,  what  have  we  learned  and  where  do  we  find 
ourselves?  We  see  that  death  precedes  new  birth  as  night 
the  day,  the  old  east  dying  out  as  the  new  west  rises  to  greet 
the  sun.  We  find  ourselves  standing  on  the  border  of  a 
great  ocean,  whose  waters  equal  all  the  other  waters  of  the 
earth  combined,  and  cover  one  fourth  of  the  earth 's  surface, 
while  a  canal  cut  through  the  continent  into  this  ocean 
makes  commercially  all  the  waters  of  the  earth  one  sea. 

More  startling  still,  we  find  ourselves  gazing  out  upon 
a  sea  whose  waters  mark  the  limit  of  progressional  migra 
tions.  Here  halts  the  star  of  empire;  here  sets  the  sun  of 
civilization,  illuminating  never  again  a  new  or  virgin  west, 
but  rising  the  morrow's  morn  on  the  old,  old  east,  with  its 


WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE !     439 

dead  sea,  its  blistered  hills  and  sterile  plains,  its  ruined 
cities  and  decayed  humanity. 

Here  then  upon  the  shore  surrounding  San  Francisco 
bay  is  the  natural  and  logical  place  for  a  World  Centre 
of  Industry,  where  the  problems  of  the  future  may  be 
wrought  out,  until  the  sun  of  progress  turns  backward  in 
its  course,  or  wakens  to  new  life  the  dead  nations  of  the 
ancient  east. 

And  in  this  coming  together  of  West  and  East,  with 
only  the  waters  between,  there  will  be  many  undreamed 
of  developments,  each  as  magical  as  any  which  have  yet 
appeared  upon  this  earth. 

Why  is  it  then  that  San  Francisco  is  not  further  ad 
vanced  in  the  accomplishment  of  her  high  destiny?  Why 
sit  we  quiescent  at  the  Golden  Gate  as  though  blind  to 
our  many  advantages,  blind  to  our  geographical  position, 
blind  to  the  importance  of  our  matchless  climate,  a  climate 
void  of  the  extremes  of  heat  and  cold,  void  of  the  enervating 
influences  of  the  south  which  militates  against  the  per 
manency  of  extensive  factories,  void  of  the  floods  and 
famines,  the  death-dealing  sun-blights  and  wind-storms  of 
midcontinent  and  the  east  ? 

Is  it  that  we  fail  to  appreciate  the  economic  value  of 
such  a  climate  as  an  industrial  asset,  aside  from  the  health 
and  comfort  of  living  and  working  in  it;  more  especially 
when  with  it  there  are  plentiful  food  products,  wharf  and 
factory  sites,  bay  shore  enough  for  the  world's  work,  ac 
cessible  raw  material  and  cheap  power,  oil  tanked  in  the 
earth,  metals  in  the  mountains,  money  without  limit  for 
all  legitimate  purposes,  and  the  markets  of  the  world  at 
our  feet?  We  have  but  to  open  our  Golden  Gate  to  show 
a  spot  singularly  suitable  not  only  for  a  World  Centre 
of  Industry  but  for  a  World  Commercial  Clearing  House, 
such  as  was  so  long  in  successful  operation  at  Venice  and 
London,  where  a  full  supply  of  the  world's  raw  material, 
products,  and  manufactures  were  kept  always  stored  for 
sale.  At  present  New  York  harbor  is  the  greatest  of  sea- 


440  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

ports  as  the  Atlantic  is  commercially  the  greatest  of  oceans, 
but  as  the  far  greater  natural  wealth  of  the  far  greater 
ocean  is  utilized  the  First  Port  of  the  Pacific  should  attain 
an  eminence  surpassing  all  others.  Here  is  this  matchless 
bay,  which  with  its  tidal  rivers  tributary  offers  dockage 
space  practically  unlimited,  over  five  hundred  miles  of 
water  frontage  being  already  available  for  pier  construc 
tion,  which  may  be  further  increased  by  dredging  sloughs 
and  reclaiming  tule  lands. 

Or  is  it  that  the  choicest  gift  of  the  gods  has  fallen 
to  our  lot,  contentment?  Is  it  that  with  the  purple  hazy 
sunshine  and  delicious  air,  with  health  according  to  our 
wisdom  and  wealth  sufficient  for  our  needs,  is  it  that  we 
lack  industrial  energy  if  indeed  we  do  not  lack  industrial 
intelligence  ? 

No,  not  that.  On  every  side  are  marks  of  laudable 
ambition,  of  a  keen  desire  for  civic  betterment  and 
economic  advancement,  all  efforts  tending  thereunto  save 
the  one  and  only  essential. 

What  is  it  then  that  we  lack?  What  is  it  that  bars 
our  progress?  Why  idle  we  time  away  and  see  others 
sweeping  our  ships  and  sailors  from  the  sea,  our  factories 
from  the  land,  using  the  very  canal  which  we  have  made 
to  thrust  us  still  further  aside  and  bring  upon  us  the 
contempt  of  all  progressive  peoples? 

Let  us  diagnose  the  situation  a  bit. 

The  first  step  toward  civic  betterment  is  to  see  and 
acknowledge  civic  errors. 

Watching  the  play  of  royalty  in  Europe  we  can  but 
conclude  that  the  best  king  is  he  wto  is  least  a  king. 
Watching  the  play  of  representative  democracy  in  the 
United  States  of  America  we  can  but  note  the  political 
propaganda  that  turns  our  ablest  men  into  sharpers,  our 
purest  men  into  paths  of  indirection,  into  self-seeking 
demagogues  and  panders  to  party;  we  can  but  view  with 
concern  those  phases  of  liberty  which  lead  to  libertinism, 
and  that  growth  of  power  and  population  which  tends 


WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE?     441 

toward  the  degeneration  rather  than  the  elevation  of  the 
body  politic.  It  is  a  question  not  yet  settled  whether  a  too 
free  democracy,  irresponsible  and  loosely  administered,  can 
endure  before  an  autocratic  government  with  a  constant 
tendency  toward  absolute  despotism.  We  have  examples 
in  Mexico  under  Porfirio  Diaz,  in  Germany  under  kaiser 
kultur,  and  in  the  predilections  of  Japan. 

When  our  forefathers,  of  blessed  memory,  found  them 
selves  independent  of  England,  with  lands  unlimited,  they 
said,  Go  to,  now;  let  others  come,  the  priest-ridden  and 
prince-ridden,  let  all  come  who  will ;  we  will  give  them  lib 
erty,  homes,  free  schools  and  free  religion.  The  cause  is 
the  cause  of  humanity,  the  cause  of  the  poor ;  we  will  be  to 
them  Providence, — and  make  money  by  it. 

Which  was  all  well  enough  provided  they  were  so  in 
clined,  and  provided  they  had  kept  to  themselves  that 
inalienable  gift  of  God,  self-government,  and  had  not  flung 
it  away  to  strangers,  as  witness  the  office-holders  in  the 
United  States  this  day. 

The  good  work  was  begun  by  killing  Indians  and  en 
slaving  Africans,  and  concluded  by  the  expulsion  of  the 
Chinese.  The  irony  of  it  our  fathers  never  suspected. 

The  redemption  of  the  world  being  thus  so  satisfactorily 
provided  for,  the  New  Englanders  came  in  their  migrations 
to  the  Ohio  valley,  their  eyes  still  turned  westward.  Cal 
ifornia,  and  half  way  back  to  the  Atlantic,  all  save  a  sea 
board  strip  of  Franciscan  missions  was  primeval  wilder 
ness;  where  San  Francisco  now  stands  were  dunes  and 
chaparral  where  rabbits  burrowed  and  grizzly  bears  were 
lassoed. 

The  far-away  United  States  was  composed  of  a  good 
class  of  people  from  England,  Holland,  and  Germany,  or 
their  descendants.  They  were  for  the  most  part  thought 
ful  men  of  probity  who  had  come  hither  for  a  purpose. 

At  that  time  our  government  was  nearer  pure  repub 
licanism  than  it  will  probably  ever  be  again.  It  was  more 
ably  and  honestly  administered,  if  we  except  the  admin- 


4412  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

istrations  of  Lincoln  and  Roosevelt,  than  it  has  been  at 
any  time  since.  If  the  truth  must  be  told,  it  is  the  old. 
old  story, — with  the  increase  of  wealth  and  power  mor 
ality  and  integrity  took  a  seat  below  the  salt. 

Then  and  thenceforward  our  history  might  be  written. 
The  Land  of  Errors  and  Lost  Opportunities.  For  among 
the  many  measures  then  opportune  were  the  establishing 
of  a  government  and  the  breeding  of  a  race  such  as  never 
before  had  inhabited  this  earth.  Then  too  might  have 
been  accomplished  the  differentiation  of  rascality  and 
republicanism;  the  return  of  our  Africans  to  the  homes 
of  their  ancestors ;  the  conservation  of  our  natural  resources 
to  the  abolition  of  all  taxes  and  imposts  for  all  time; — all 
this,  and  more,  as  citizens,  not  as  socialists,  whose  radical 
ism  is  an  abomination. 

We  can  scarcely  be  called  a  government  by  the  people 
for  the  people,  but  rather  a  government  by  cliques  and 
cabals  for  the  benefit  of  their  leaders,  a  government  by 
office-mongers  the  essence  of  whose  polit}7  is  bribery  and 
the  end  corroded  selfishness. 

Bribery,  the  moving  spirit  in  our  organizations,  the 
essential  oil  of  our  elections, — not  bribery  of  the  vulgar 
sort  by  mone}^  payment,  but  all  the  same  bribery  pure 
and  palpable.  I  do  not  give  my  man  a  check  for  stealing 
a  convention,  or  wrecking  a  party,  or  making  me  presi 
dent,  but  I  buy  him  just  the  same.  If  he  prefers  office, 
or  political  influence,  something  as  he  naively  asserts  that 
money  cannot  buy,  I  have  a  stock  in  trade  of  that  sort  of 
goods  after  election.  And  so  on  all  down  the  line,  the 
ballot-box  and  not  the  cash-box  for  bribery  of  high  degree. 

And  as  human  nature  is  constructed  it  is  difficult  to 
get  away  from  it.  It  is  considered  no  part  of  wisdom 
among  practical  men  to  expect  something  for  nothing, 
even  in  the  manipulation  of  pure  patriotism.  Yet  there 
must  be  honesty  somewhere,  even  in  party  politics.  All 
the  same  one  escapes  many  rascalities  declining  office  under 
a  republic. 


WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE?     443 

The  standard  of  United  States  citizen  ship  was  lowered 
by  the  civil  war,  which  carried  off  thousands  of  the  flower 
of  American  patriotism, — not  immigrants  nor  hyphenates, 
but  Americans,  sons  of  the  makers  of  the  republic, — ren 
dering  other  thousands  unfit  for  anything  but  to  hold  office 
and  draw  pensions,  and  all  because  of  the  worthless  African, 
worthless  for  any  purpose  but  to  adorn  cotton  plantations 
and  sell  their  votes  to  the  highest  bidder. 

Grafting  as  a  fine  art  also  came  in  with  the  civil  war, 
and  fitted  in  well  with  government  by  railroads,  by  trusts, 
by  monopolies,  and  combination  of  capital.  This  on  the 
seamy  side,  signifying  money ;  but  worst  of  all  and  of  most 
sinister  influence  is  the  graft  on  industry,  which  came  on 
apace,  at  the  hand  of  the  exploiter  of  the  workingman,  who 
also  aspires  to  run  the  government. 

And  as  during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
the  loftier  ideals  of  future  benefits  were  thrown  aside  by 
our  predecessors  for  the  accumulation  of  wealth  and  for 
proximate  enjoyment,  so  now  during  this  first  half  of  the 
twentieth  century,  we  of  the  city  of  San  Francisco,  when 
duty  beckons  with  still  greater  insistence  turn  away,  mak 
ing  no  adequate  effort  to  take  our  proper  place  of  power 
and  influence  among  the  great  cities  of  the  world  for  our 
own  glory  and  the  good  of  mankind. 

Is  it  not  somewhat  late  in  the  day,  the  caviler  may 
ask,  to  begin  with  your  eugenics  and  race  betterment  after 
diluting  your  population  from  the  byways  of  Europe  for 
half  a  century?  And  this  in  the  futile  attempt  to  manu 
facture  high  grade  citizens  from  base  material,  until  you 
can  no  longer  claim  to  be  a  race  or  nation  at  all,  but 
rather  a  concretion  of  heterogeneous  humanity  where 
dissimilar  elements  are  loosely  united  by  weak  amalgam 
for  citizenship,  each  still  acting  for  himself  with  little 
love  of  country  or  true  patriotism, — an  incongruous  mix 
ture  without  too  much  consistency  or  conscience. 

It  was  once  a  proud  boast,  that  of  American  citizen 
ship;  a  proud  boast  in  the  early  fifties  to  be  of  California  ; 


444  IN    THESE    LATTEK   DAYS 

now,  politically,  we  are  one  with  the  Polish  Jew,  the  Italian 
fishwife,  and  the  wooly  negro  from  the  jungles  of  Africa. 
And  herein  is  hidden  a  fetish.  For  the  encouragement 
of  faddists,  however,  we  might  say  that  a  thousand  years 
of  intelligent  effort  may  possibly  bring  back  American 
citizenship  to  where  it  was  a  hundred  years  ago. 

The  truth  is  we  run  our  good  things  to  extremes,  to 
fads  and  fetishism.  We  make  a  fetish  of  money,  of  educa 
tion,  of  labor,  of  the  negro,  of  immigration  and  assimila 
tion;  the  exercise  of  our  prostituted  suffrage  is  a  solemn 
rite.  Commercial  honesty  is  regulated  by  the  cash  register, 
and  political  integrity  by  the  size  and  quality  of  the  bribe. 
The  negro  fetish  incarnates  a  false  spirit,  so  proved  by  at 
tempts  at  social  equalization.  The  labor  fetish  is  equally 
fallacious  in  attempting  the  impossible  in  politics  and 
economics.  The  education  fetish  out-swells  all  the  others, 
even  to  bursting,  the  inevitable  tendency  of  all  measures 
where  one  class  of  voters  orders  the  goods  which  another 
class  is  to  pay  for. 

We  also  love  our  little  fictions,  even  going  so  far  in 
one  instance  as  to  stamp  the  lie  upon  our  coin,  In  God 
We  Trust,  whereas  do  we  not  know  that  it  is  in  the  dollar 
we  trust?  We  support  newspapers  with  their  too 
palpable  hypocrisies,  their  distorted  statements,  and  their 
interminable  braggadocio  and  vulgar  self-praise.  Con 
scienceless  sheets,  bribed  by  German  influence,  show  the  fact 
plainly  enough  on  their  face,  and  carry  not  the  conviction 
they  imagine,  but  excite  only  disgust. 

Nor  should  we  expect  profound  wisdom  from  the  paci 
fists  who  fancy  they  can  stop  the  juggernaut  car  of  war 
with  windy  words.  No  harm  to  pose  for  effect,  good 
friends,  or  to  advertise  your  inefficiency,  if  such  be  your 
purpose ;  but  unless  you  are  prepared  to  grant  each  belliger 
ent  his  own  terms,  your  efforts  are  wasted,  however  sup 
ported  they  may  be  by  a  shoal  of  learned  cranks,  or  how 
ever  successful  you  may  have  been  making  cheap  auto- 


WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE?     445 

mobiles  or  running  a  sensational  church  or  a  superfluous 
university. 

As  a  rule  an  efficient  man  of  affairs  makes  a  better 
executive  officer  than  a  college  professor  trained  within 
restrictive  lines;  for  under  the  former,  while  obtaining 
the  highest  political  advantage,  economic  supremacy  is 
secured  as  well.  Pedagogy,  ideality,  and  practical  politics 
do  not  assimilate.  Luck  takes  place  before  discernment, 
though  often  less  lasting.  The  higher  we  are  carried  by 
good  fortune  the  greater  is  sure  to  be  the  fall.  For  learned 
verbiage  commend  me  to  the  German  doctors  and  professors 
in  their  impotent  attempts  to  reconcile  the  teachings  of 
Christ  with  the  doings  of  the  devil. 

Education  is  a  good  thing  in  reason,  but  like  all  good 
things  is  subject  to  abuse.  Carried  to  excess  it  becomes 
a  fad  or  a  fetish,  doing  in  many  cases  more  harm  than 
good.  If  continued  on  present  lines  of  demagogism, 
wherein  loud-mouthed  extremists  pay  nothing  for  its  sup 
port,  we  shall  presently  see  any  lazy  lout  taken  up  and 
fed  and  clothed  while  old  saws  are  pumped  into  him,  after 
ward  to  be  set  up  in  business  and  a  dwelling  and  wife 
provided.  From  the  intellectually  over-fed  girl  comes  the 
super-woman  spoiling  something  better,  while  boys  are 
taken  from  work  they  are  fitted  for  and  consigned  to 
failure.  Education  with  us  is  too  cheap,  and  embellished 
with  too  many  useless  accessories.  What  costs  nothing  is 
seldom  highly  prized.  Our  foremost  men  are  usually  among 
those  unspoiled  by  superfluous  education. 

Furthermore,  it  stands  out  plainly  enough  to  those- 
who  would  see  it  that  men  and  women  have  each  their 
sphere  of  usefulness,  and  in  which  they  excel,  for  so  was 
made  man,  male  and  female;  it  is  as  much  out  of  place 
for  women  to  attempt  the  more  virile  duties  of  men  as  for 
men  to  usurp  the  domestic  functions  of  women. 

Half  of  our  higher  educating  is  worse  than  wasted  in 
spoiling  inferior  material  for  the  more  useful  occupations 
in  life.  Injudicious  education  narrows  the  intellect,  par- 


446  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

alyzes  originality,  arid  destroys  the  initiative.  Still  more 
senseless  is  giving  Japanese  free  education  with  which  to 
destroy  us  whenever  the  opportunity  offers.  And  worst 
of  all  is  to  permit  German  professors  in  the  pay  of  Amer 
ican  universities  to  poison  the  minds  of  our  youths  with 
the  doctrine  of  Prussian  brutism,  militarism,  and  kaiser 
kultur.  Do  we  want  America  Germanized?  Do  we  want 
to  eliminate  from  our  curriculum  every  sentiment  of  right 
and  wrong  and  teach  only  the  morality  of  murder  ? 

The  sham  and  charlatanry  attending  our  elections, 
with  the  pretence  of  patriotism,  and  the  duty  of  every 
citizen  to  deposit  his  vote — cash  value  by  the  thousand 
fifty  cents  each;  eligibility  determined  by  skin-tint;  white 
or  black,  male  or  female,  admissible,  but  nothing  yellow ; — 
while  partly  true  is  none  the  less  diverting. 

Nor  is  it  good  polity  to  permit  the  jitney  nuisance  to 
menace  the  safety  of  a  city  full  of  people  and  ruin  legiti 
mate  transportation,  the  only  means  of  reaching  the  suburbs 
or  of  extending  the  city  limits. 

A  sum  equal  to  the  waste  of  the  present  Congress  and 
the  public  funds  spent  in  measures  to  secure  the  reelection 
of  its  members  would  give  us  a  merchant  marine  and  army 
and  navy,  men  and  implements,  worthy  of  the  honor  and 
dignity  of  a  great  nation,  and  at  the  same  time  furnish 
profitable  employment  for  all  workers. 

The  United  States  is  quite  in  demand  just  now.  Labor 
wants  it,  socialists  want  it,  women  want  it,  the  Catholics 
want  it,  while  the  Jew,  the  Irishman,  and  the  notable  cheap 
automobile  maker  each  thinks  he  has  it  already.  Mother 
England  would  regulate  our  commerce,  while  Germany  is 
interested  in  watching  the  effects  of  bomb-play  on  neutral 
ity.  The  administration  at  Washington  would  like  to  retain 
office  for  another  term,  for  a  dozen  other  terms,  and  so 
undertakes  to  straddle  several  fences  at  one  time,  at  which 
effort  it  cuts  a  sorrowful  figure. 

We  must  admit  that  the  prospect  for  immediate  im- 


WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE?     447 

provement  in  San  Francisco  is  not  nattering.  However  it 
may  be  with  our  friends  at  the  east,  however  benefited  they 
may  be  by  the  war  in  Europe,  the  Panama  canal,  and  the 
now  somewhat  obsolete  cry  of  peace  at  any  price,  however 
guarded  and  protected  shipping  interests  011  the  Atlantic 
may  be,  we  in  California  are  not  growing  stronger,  but 
weaker,  both  politically  and  economically.  We  cannot  have 
true  and  permanent  prosperity  with  an  administration  at 
Washington  whose  primary  purpose  is  to  secure  its  con 
tinuance  in  office,  whose  injudicious  measures  while  in 
creasing  taxation  destroy  industries,  and  sweep  commerce 
from  the  ocean  while  pandering  to  laborism  for  votes,  thus 
throwing  thousands  of  American  seamen  out  of  employ 
ment,  and  giving  the  carrying  trade  of  the  Pacific  to  the 
Japanese,  who  hold  high  carnival  over  our  idiocy,  we 
meanwhile  maintaining  the  Panama  canal  more  for  their 
benefit  than  for  our  own. 

Placing  in  high  office  rabid  labor  leaders  for  the  labor- 
vote  is  not  the  best  way  to  establish  equitable  relations 
between  labor  and  capital,  and  few  will  deny  that  a  more 
injudicious  measure  than  the  so-called  seamen's  bill  was 
never  before  passed  by  a  legislative  body, — a  bill  at  once 
fatal  to  the  merchant  marine  while  seriously  crippling 
the  navy.  By  this  one  act  of  a  self-serving,  partisan  con 
gress  industrial  development  at  San  Francisco  bay  has 
been  set  back  for  many  years. 

Boomers  point  to  midcontinent  and  Atlantic  coast  pros 
perity,  and  quote  railroads,  food  products,  and  war  muni 
tions,  which  is  all  very  well,  but  where  does  California 
come  in?  What  are  the  people  of  the  Pacific  coast  doing 
to  secure  some  of  the  advantages  from  the  wonderful 
canal,  and  the  so-helpful  war?  Nothing;  there  will  be  the 
overflow  from  the  east,  optimists  say,  which  will  make  us 
rich, — tourists,  retired  capitalists  with  enterprise  all  sucked 
out  of  them  making  homes  here,  and  always  lovers  of 
pleasure  in  plenty;  so  may  we  content  ourselves  with  the 
crumbs  that  fall  from  the  tables  of  progressive  industry 


448  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

over  the  way,  and  henceforth  write  ourselves  The  happy 
land  of  Eastern  Overflows. 

What  can  we  do  ?  Do !  Any  thing,  everything.  Abolish 
labor  intrigue;  drive  laborism  out  of  politics  as  Hiram 
Johnson  drove  railroads  out  of  politics;  relegate  the  old- 
time  commercial  traveller  back  to  the  people  that  sent 
him,  and  peace  propagandists  to  the  sewing-circle  and 
sunday-school;  then  make  things  and  sell  them. 

Let  our  very  best  men  organize  for  establishing  and 
promoting  manufactures  on  the  broadest  conceivable  basis, 
yet  always  along  practical  and  commonsense  lines;  estab 
lish  a  world  commercial  clearing  house,  and  invite  all 
nations  and  all  industries  to  keep  a  stock  of  their  goods 
here  for  sale;  establish  also  a  commercial  training-school 
for  clerks  and  business  men  to  study  the  ways  of  foreign 
peoples  of  whom  they  would  make  customers,  their  wants 
and  necessities,  their  manners  and  methods,  their  weak 
nesses  and  their  strength,  their  proclivities  and  their  lan 
guages;  then  send  out,  not  a  boy  with  a  carpet-bag  of 
samples,  but  ship-loads  of  the  best  men  obtainable  for  the 
purpose. 

Seems  chimerical,  does  it?  But  it  is  not,  nor  half  so 
difficult  to  accomplish  as  the  magic  feat  of  your  so  superb 
and  successful  fair  which  to-day  is  and  tomorrow  is  cast 
into  the  oven. 

Following  the  age  of  gold  and  the  age  of  grain,  came 
to  California  fruit,  which  however  welcome  as  a  luxury 
does  not  meet  the  war-time  necessity  as  a  staple  food 
product,  and  with  land  at  $500.  an  acre  and  a  limited 
market  does  not  pay  the  producer.  To  restore  to  fertility 
worn-out  grain  lands,  after  a  half-century  of  non-rotated 
crops,  is  troublesome  and  expensive;  hence  for  the  present 
at  least  it  is  with  us  manufacturing  or  a  dulce  far  niente 
existence.  With  manufacturing,  commerce  will  follow, 
but  where  we  have  but  little  to  send  away  there  can  be 
but  little  commerce. 

Yet  further,  San  Francisco  can  attain  the  full  measure 


WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE?     449 

of  her  high  privileges  only  by  such  commerce  and  manu 
factures  as  can  successfully  compete  with  the  rest  of  the 
world,  while  the  builders  of  the  canal  can  derive  benefit 
and  not  actual  loss  from  building  it  only  by  a  merchant 
marine  which  can  successfully  compete  with  other  nations 
in  the  carrying  trade  of  the  world.  To  bar  cheap  foreign 
goods  by  high  duties,  as  some  would  have  it,  as  a  remedy 
for  the  exclusion  of  cheap  labor  is  as  illogical  and  absurd 
as  to  drive  American  ships  from  the  ocean  in  order  to 
benefit  American  seamen. 

The  bald  facts  remain  that  we  have  built  a  canal  for 
the  use  of  all  nations,  and  all  nations  are  profiting  by  the 
use  of  it,  largely  to  the  detriment  of  the  builders.  In  the 
main  traffic  between  the  Asiatic  shore  of  the  Pacific  and 
the  shores  of  the  Atlantic  California  is  left  out,  while 
Japan  derives  the  benefit  from  it.  Some  in  California  saw 
how  matters  were  tending  from  the  start;  some  will  not 
see  them  as  they  are  even  now. 

England  and  Japan  should  be  grateful,  but  they  are 
not.  They  smile  at  our  government  as  pedagogic,  and  at. 
our  men  of  affairs  as  tamely  submissive;  in  the  meantime 
taking  all  that  they  can  get  and  giving  for  it  as  little  as 
possible. 

Many  feared  a  slump  after  the  fair,  but  that  was  im 
possible  because  there  was  nothing  to  collapse,  neither  ag 
riculture  commerce  nor  manufactures.  The  fair  was  mag 
nificent,  and  accomplished  a  great  work  in  making  better 
known  our  country  and  climate.  All  honor  to  the  men 
who  conceived  it  and  carried  it  forward  to  a  successful 
issue.  Though  many  houses  in  the  city  remained  empty 
during  the  nine  months  of  its  continuance,  and  business  was 
dull,  the  hotels,  apartment  houses,  and  certain  stores 
reaped  a  rich  harvest.  But  these  were  neither  natural 
wealth  nor  economic  industry.  The  boasts  about  building 
and  bank  clearances  were  misleading,  and  intended  to 
mislead,  as  they  were  largely  incident  to  the  exposition, 
and  not  belonging  to  the  business  proper  of  the  city.  We 

15 


450  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

should  hardly  consider  the  issuance  of  distorted  statements 
good  policy  under  any  circumstances. 

Frolic,  festivals,  and  fairs  are  not  business  but  play, 
though  play  sometimes  is  good  business.  But  if  all  work 
and  no  play  makes  Jack  a  dull  boy,  all  play  and  no  work 
makes  a  travesty  on  business  and  a  fool  of  the  community. 

There  are  good  business  men  who  believe  in  booming, 
who  like  to  look  upon  the  bright  side,  who  will  even  stretch 
the  truth  a  little  to  make  the  bad  appear  better ;  there  are 
others  who  prefer  looking  facts  squarely  in  the  face,  and 
meeting  the  situation  as  become  strong,  sensible  men. 
Nothing  is  gained,  either  in  business  or  journalism,  by  hol 
low  buncombe. 

We  have  become  wealthy  and  great,  not  because  of  our 
government  but  in  spite  of  it;  we  have  become  lax  in 
morals,  in  integrity,  and  in  patriotism,  not  because  of  our 
wealth  and  greatness,  but  because  of  civic  degeneration, 
because  of  our  flinging  away  our  most  precious  inherit 
ance,  American  citizenship  of  the  quality  bequeathed  to 
us  by  the  founders  of  the  republic. 

Looking  nearer  home  for  the  cause  of  our  industrial 
doldrums,  we  can  but  observe  that  when  a  body  of  in 
telligent  and  efficient  men,  prominent  citizens  of  no  mean 
city,  meet,  not  once  or  twice  but  several  times,  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  organizing  and  acting  for  the  promotion 
of  manufactures ;  when  in  all  their  free  and  thorough  dis 
cussions,  which  are  always  along  lines  of  experience  and 
discretion,  advantages  brought  forward  and  obstacles  re 
moved,  and  never  a  word  spoken  as  to  the  primary  essential 
in  all  economic  achievement,  and  never  anything  accom 
plished,  we  may  safely  conclude  that  there  is  something 
rotten  in  Denmark. 

For  these  are  of  our  city's  best,  equal  to  the  best  of 
any  city;  men  accustomed  to  meet  and  overcome  diffi 
culties,  not  to  give  way  before  them;  who  could  watch 
the  flames  devour  their  city  without  a  whimper,  and  re- 


WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE?     451 

build  it  in  proportions  of  beauty  and  utility  such  as  were 
never  dreamed  of  before;  who  could  raise  for  a  world 
exposition  five  million  dollars  at  the  first  sitting,  to  be 
supplemented  by  twenty-five  millions  more,  and  carry  for 
ward  the  enterprise  with  such  wisdom  and  discretion,  and 
with  such  successful  results  as  to  command  the  admiration 
of  all  nations ;  and  this  in  the  face  of  Mexico's  madness  and 
Europe's  suicide;  who  could  subscribe  off  hand  a  million 
dollars  of  their  own  money  for  an  opera  house  to  cover  a 
city  block,  even  though  the  project  be  defeated  by  a  puerile 
mayor  for  labor  votes,  leaving  in  the  civic  centre  a  ghastly 
scab,  there  long  to  remain  as  a  memento  of  official  charlat 
anry  and  imbecility. 

They  will  stand  up  before  the  scowling  Nipponese, 
scowling  because  after  we  have  given  them  so  much  we 
do  not  give  them  more,  while  the  administration  at  Wash 
ington  is  shaking  in  its  shoes  from  fear — fear  of  damage 
to  party,  to  the  high  ideals  of  pedagogic  purity,  and  fling 
ing  away  to  them  our  dearest  possession,  our  chief  de 
pendence  for  a  brilliant  future,  the  supremacy  of  the 
Pacific. 

Nor  are  they  indifferent  to  the  destiny  of  our  superb 
bay,  or  unappreciative  as  to  its  glorious  potentialities,  or 
blind  to  the  absolute  necessity  of  general  manufacturing 
as  the  chief  factor  of  permanent  growth  and  prosperity. 

They  know,  as  history  tells  them,  that  a  centre  of 
industry — not  a  centre  of  art,  or  of  education,  or  of  wealth 
science  or  religion,  but  a  centre  of  industry  is  a  centre  of 
empire,  and  that  of  all  great  monuments  to  industrialism 
which  have  ever  arisen  by  the  hand  of  man  there  has  never 
been  one  with  conditions  and  opportunities  at  the  begin 
ning  superior  to  those  of  their  own  city  and  bay.  Sir 
Gilbert  Parker  can  see  from  London  more  than  some  of  us 
can  see  here  on  the  ground.  He  says  that  the  Panama 
canal  will  soon  make  the  western  ocean  alive  with  shipping 
like  the  Atlantic,  our  world  exposition  meanwhile  fore 
shadowing  the  magnificence  of  the  central  port  of  San 


452  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

Francisco,  where  all  this  human  activity  is  ordained  by 
geography  to  foregather  and  concentrate  its  energy,  while 
with  her  wonderful  situation  California  may  soberly  aspire 
to  the  queenship  of  the  Pacific  in  its  noonday  maturity. 

They  know  too,  these  our  first  citizens,  as  every  one 
knows,  of  their  city 's  embarrassment ;  they  know  the  cause 
of  it,  and  feel  the  humiliation  and  disgrace  attending  it, 
and  notice  how  few  are  inclined  to  speak  of  it, — that  a 
strange  reticence  in  this  respect  pervades  the  community. 
They  know  this  yet  will  not  see,  or  seeing  will  not  touch, 
or  touching,  it  is  with  fingers  so  softly  applied  as  to  soothe 
rather  than  to  eradicate. 

They  know  very  well  that  without  free  labor,  without 
operatives  at  a  moderate  wage,  such  as  will  enable  us 
successfully  to  compete  with  others  we  can  have  no  fac 
tories;  in  a  word  that  without  reasonably  cheap  labor  we 
cannot  engage  in  general  manufacturing,  which  is  an 
essential  of  our  progress  and  prosperity. 

They  fathom  fully  the  bugaboo  made  of  cheap  labor, 
and  the  arrant  nonsense  current  concerning  it.  They 
understand  perfectly  that  more  than  half  the  work  of  the 
world  is  low  grade,  and  must  be  done  by  humble  workers 
or  not  at  all,  the  higher-up  toilers  being  too  dainty  for  it; 
that  reasonably  low  pay  to  inferior  laborers  is  as  great  a 
boon  as  high  pay  to  skilled  workmen,  as  to  the  low  grade 
worker  it  is  that  or  nothing,  and  all  that  stands  between 
him  and  starvation;  and  that  without  cheap  labor  and 
cheap  laborers  millions  must  suffer,  while  farm  and  fac 
tory  work,  domestic  service  and  scores  of  useful  and  bene 
ficial  industries  must  to  a  certain  extent  be  given  up. 

They  are  neither  fools  nor  sentimentalists,  who  would 
run  their  business  as  benevolent  institutions.  They  give 
to  all  charities  liberally,  but  they  find  it  better  to  make 
the  money  first  by  practical  and  legitimate  ways,  and  then 
give  it  than  to  ruin  their  business  attempting  impracticable 
methods. 

Sentimentalism  as  applied  to  industrial  development  is 


WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE?     453 

out  of  place,  and  the  fallacies  attending  American  citizen 
ship,  assimilation,  and  cheap  labor,  must  be  dismissed  if 
anything  of  importance  is  to  be  accomplished. 

Even  were  industrialism  to  be  conducted  as  a  charity 
there  were  more  to  be  said  in  favor  of  the  humble  worker, 
whose  low  wage  means  to  him  bread,  than  of  the  assertive 
artisan  who  pays  his  exploiter  to  secure  for  him  a  high 
wage  and  short  days  which  give  him  more  time  and  money 
for  political  agitation  and  the  drinking  saloons. 

And  yet  these,  our  best  men,  seem  content  to  see  their 
highest  interests  sacrificed,  and  themselves  relegated  to 
lives  of  tame  respectability.  Writing  truthfully  and 
plainly  to  a  friend  as  to  the  situation  here  at  present  they 
would  say,  "The  greatest  opportunity  for  great  things 
ever  before  offered;  but  first  the  place  needs  cleaning  up, 
politically,  morally,  and  industrially.  True,  we  can  give 
our  customers  now,  under  hall-mark  'Made  in  San 
Francisco',  a  guaranteed  article  produced  all  by  white 
labor  at  the  highest  wage  and  shortest  hours,  under  labor 
lords  who  take  their  accustomed  toll,  and  supply  the  goods 
at  a  price  but  little  higher  than  Germany  and  Japan  ask 
for  a  better  article.  No  poor  white  trash  paying  nothing 
to  the  labor  leaders,  and  nothing  yellow  permitted  to  work 
at  any  price,  no  matter  how  advantageous  to  the  producer 
or  to  the  commonwealth.  Government  loose ;  justice  facile ; 
morals  easy ;  and  politics,  mostly  of  the  Irish  and  Catholic 
persuasion,  as  usual,  rotten/' 

Some  good  citizens  are  less  ambitious,  less  enterpris 
ing  than  others,  or  have  the  city's  interest  less  at  heart. 
These  may  say  in  all  sincerity,  Why  should  we  bother? 
we  are  rich,  we  are  inferior  to  none,  we  have  everything 
that  money  can  buy, — ah!  there  is  the  rub.  There  is  a 
nobler  life  that  is  not  satisfied  with  what  money  can  buy. 
In  truth,  the  greater  the  present  wealth,  the  less  satisfied 
the  intelligent  possessor  is  inclined  to  be  with  what  it  will 
buy. 

Romulus  and  Remus,  suckled  by  the  wolf,  glad  for  the 


454  IN   THESE   LATTER  DAYS 

nourishment  were  content.  The  half-naked  Venetians, 
paddling  in  Adriatic  mud,  had  all  that  money  could  buy, 
and  were  content,  but  not  so  the  dominating  doges  of 
the  imperial  city  that  uprose  from  that  mud.  London,  a 
city  of  cities,  as  our  city  should  be  including  all  the  bay 
shore,  was  content  as  a  Thames  embankment,  but  not  so 
her  destiny,  and  not  so  our  destiny.  Paris  was  gay  Paris 
as  Julius  Caesar  found  it,  a  collection  of  mud  huts  on  the 
banks  of  the  Seine,  and  it  will  always  be  gay  Paris  as  our 
city  will  always  be  gay  San  Francisco,  but  Clovis  and 
Hugh  Capet  were  not  satisfied  with  the  mud  huts  however 
happy  their  former  occupants  had  been  in  their  possession. 

It  was  evident  from  the  beginning  that  unless  some 
special  effort  was  made  to  secure  practical  benefits  from 
the  Panama  canal  and  the  war  in  Europe  those  occur 
rences  would  prove  to  California  loss  rather  than  profit. 
It  is  not  the  mill  that  makes  the  water  run.  In  the  absence 
of  extensive  staple  agricultural  products  and  correspond 
ing  commerce,  and  comparatively  little  accomplished 
toward  starting  up  general  manufacturing,  the  disadvan 
tages  have  proved  greater  even  than  was  anticipated.  We 
have  every  facility  for  making  anything  that  can  be  made 
elsewhere,  that  is  to  say  cheap  raw  material,  cheap  power, 
cheap  transportation,  moderate  living  expenses, — every 
thing  but  labor  at  a  fair  and  reasonable  wage,  and  on  this 
score  the  city  is  held  up  by  the  pirates  of  industry.  Ger 
many  did  not  become  strong  and  great  cringing  for  votes 
or  through  subserviency  to  labor  leaders. 

While  the  labor  leaders  heap  curses  upon  capitalists 
for  having  capital,  they  call  upon  capitalists  to  provide 
for  them.  Capital  signifies  not  only  stored  labor,  but 
labor  and  economy.  Were  there  no  capitalists  and  no 
government  within  reach,  upon  whom  would  they  then 
issue  their  demands  for  support?  Already  two-thirds  of 
the  profits  of  industry  go  to  labor,  but  the  laborites  would 
like  the  other  third  also. 

The  main  impediment  to  progress  on  the  shores  of 


WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE?     455 

San  Francisco  bay,  and  the  only  impediment,  it  is  safe 
to  say,  is  the  labor  situation,  the  capture  and  control  of 
labor  and  the  coercion  of  both  employer  and  employed 
by  exploiters  of  the  workingman,  who  thus  hold  a  mon 
opoly  of  labor  and  manipulate  it  to  their  own  advantage. 
Because  of  these  industrial  parasites  preying  upon  the 
vital  interests  of  the  country  enterprise  is  crushed,  and 
scores  of  great  industries  are  driven  from  our  city  every 
year.  The  laborites  assume  that  employers  can  pay  any 
wage  they  choose,  and  that  it  is  their  duty,  and  the  duty 
of  government,  to  give  labor  employment  on  its  own  terms. 
They  teach  their  proteges  that  it  is  right  and  proper  to 
base  wages  on  the  needs  of  the  worker  instead  of  following 
the  laws  of  economics,  which  demand  that  the  product  shall 
not  cost  more  than  it  will  sell  for. 

Another  fallacy  is  that  the  man  with  a  family  is  entitled 
to  more  consideration  than  the  man  without  one,  when  in 
reality  the  former  should  be  punished  for  bringing  children 
into  the  world  without  any  provision  for  their  support.  For 
the  past  fifty  years  we  have  been  breeding  downward  in 
stead  of  upward,  and  we  are  just  now  beginning  to  see  the 
lamentable  result  and  take  tardy  action. 

Thoughtful  persons  view  with  concern  the  rapid  drift 
ing  of  the  government  into  the  hands  of  labor  leaders. 
Present  at  every  state  and  national  legislature  are  the 
exploiters  of  the  workingmen  active  in  the  defeat  of  every 
measure  that  does  not  give  them  some  unfair  advantage. 
They  also  employ  every  possible  method  to  warp  the  judg 
ment  of  courts  and  defeat  the  ends  of  justice. 

Opportunities  for  successful  manufacturing  are  as  open 
now  as  ever  they  were  but  for  the  pirates  of  industry, 
opportunities  likewise  for  the  impecunious  to  labor  dili 
gently,  if  they  so  desire,  uniting  frugality  with  ability,  and 
become  capitalists,  as  thousands  have  done  before  them. 
No  laborer  ever  became  rich  or  great  serving  a  labor  leader, 
whose  teachings  are  based  on  imposition  and  fraud,  that 
is  in  giving  the  least  possible  return  for  the  most  possible 


456  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

pay, — lessons  in  enforced  inefficiency   and  thriftlessness. 

Organized  industry  under  the  regime  of  the  laborites 
is  organized  crime.  Threats  and  intimidation  are  the  argu 
ments  employed,  coercion  the  law,  and  dynamite  the  ulti 
mate  appeal.  Crime  is  the  atmosphere  in  which  it  lives 
and  moves;  strikes  are  a  crime,  boycotts  are  a  crime, 
maiming  and  murder  are  crimes.  The  many  trickeries 
and  Jesuitic  intrigues  for  fraudulent  purposes,  for  obtain 
ing  from  society  something  for  nothing, — well,  call  it 
laborism,  the  crime  of  the  vile  and  vulgar. 

To  tolerate  in  our  midst  a  labor  monopoly  is  a  disgrace 
to  our  government.  It  is  a  crime  to  put  to  inconvenience 
and  injury  an  entire  community  that  a  coterie  may  indulge 
in  coercion  and  revenge.  It  is  infamous  to  ruin  by  means  of 
the  boycott  a  respectable  and  law-abiding  tradesman,  offi 
cers  and  law  courts  abetting,  because  he  refuses  to  obey  the 
mandates  of  rapacious  labor  leaders.  It  is  a  reflection 
upon  the  honesty  and  integrity  of  any  government  that 
permits  a  clique  to  assume  its  functions  and  dominate  at 
will. 

And  if  any  workingman  cannot  work  here  without  a 
keeper  to  stir  up  strife  and  keep  industries  in  a  ferment, 
let  him  migrate  to  some  land  which  suits  him  better. 

Capital  imposes  upon  labor  as  opportunity  offers.  It 
has  always  been  so  and  always  will  be  so  until  man 's  nature 
changes.  So  labor  gets  the  better  of  capital  whenever  it 
can,  by  fair  means  or  foul,  and  will  continue  to  do  so  if 
left  to  the  devices  of  the  workingman 's  exploiter.  It  is 
right  for  labor  to  defend  itself,  fairly  and  legitimately,  and 
organize  for  that  purpose;  but  it  is  not  right  to  retaliate 
in  kind  upon  the  general  public,  or  resort  to  illegal  means 
for  the  enforcement  of  its  rules  and  policies. 

It  is  no  part  of  the  laborer's  business,  as  a  laborer, 
to  regulate  society  or  run  the  government,  any  more  than 
it  is  the  business  of  railroads  or  trusts  to  do  so.  These 
functions  belong  to  the  people  at  large,  and  not  to  any 
one  class.  Laborism  in  America  is  fast  becoming  like  mili- 


WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE?     457 

tarism  in  Germany ;  we  may  be  very  sure  that  neither  will 
prove  pleasant  nor  profitable. 

What  are  the  labor  leaders  doing  for  workingmen? 
They  begin  by  weakening  the  intellect  in  playing  provi 
dence,  making  of  them  first  children  and  then  fools.  They 
give  to  those  who  pay  them  for  it  all  the  work  at  a  high  rate, 
to  the  destruction  of  enterprise,  leaving  those  who  do  not 
pay  without  work,  they  and  their  families  to  starve.  They 
dominate  industry,  permitting  no  boy  to  learn  a  trade 
unless  they  are  first  paid  for  it.  They  mollycoddle  the  poor 
toilers,  as  they  call  them,  into  puerility,  until  they  have  no 
more  manliness  or  independence  than  a  Mexican  peon. 

Organized  industry  is  gradually  undermining  society 
and  subverting  government.  It  is  a  pernicious  system, 
injurious  most  of  all  to  the  workingman,  before  whose 
mind  is  constantly  kept  by  his  exploiters  the  false  idea 
that  his  is  an  injured  class.  It  is  right  and  proper  for 
those  who  do  the  work  of  the  world  to  possess  the  world, 
but  the  daily-wage  man  is  not  the  only  one  that  works. 

It  is  not  that  we  need  fear  a  permanent  reign  of  labor, 
and  this  for  two  reasons.  First,  through  ignorance  and 
incompetency  the  policies  promoted  by  the  labor  leaders 
are  largely  suicidal,  such  as  in  the  end  will  bring  destruc 
tion  upon  themselves ;  and  secondly,  the  wonderfu^apidity 
with  which  machinery  is  invented  to  take  the  place  of  men 
will  limit  more  and  more  the  sphere  of  the  workingman 
and  destroy  the  occupation  of  his  overseer.  Delay,  however, 
at  the  present  time  in  our  great  industrial  development  is 
disastrous. 

We  will  give  to  the  earlier  champions  of  labor  their 
full  meed  of  praise ;  we  will  give  to  the  present  exploiters 
of  the  workingman  our  just  condemnation;  we  will  give 
to  any  community  which  for  any  reason  or  excuse  will 
submit  to  the  continued  impositions  of  any  coterie  or  class 
our  unequivocal  disapproval. 

It  was  a  grand  thing  to  do,  a  righteous  thing,  to  emanci 
pate  down-trodden  labor  from  the  tyranny  of  capital,  from 


458  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

the  impositions  of  mercenary  and  evil-minded  men,  never 
again  to  be  so  enslaved.  It  is  not  grand  or  righteous  for 
liberated  labor  to  turn  on  its  benefactors  and  well-wishers, 
and  in  a  spirit  of  hate  and  revenge  put  to  the  sword  the 
comfort,  peace,  and  progress  of  whole  communities  of  which 
they  are  a  part,  and  on  which  they  are  still  dependent  for 
all  the  blessings  of  life. 

Nine  tenths  of  the  rich  men  in  America  to-day,  they  or 
their  fathers,  were  workingmen,  as  their  sons  may  be  after 
them,  and  they  were  neither  ruled  nor  exploited  by  any 
labor  leaders,  but  were  free,  self-respecting  American 
citizens,  who  elected  good  men  to  office,  and  managed  their 
affairs  in  their  own  way. 

Nine  tenths  of  the  whiskey  shops,  hot-beds  of  debauch 
ery  and  demagogism,  are  directly  or  indirectly  kept  running 
by  laborism,  labor  leaders,  their  satellites  and  supporters. 

The  term  cheap  labor,  as  applied  to  the  Chinese,  is  a 
bogey  which  has  fooled  the  United  States  up  to  the  limit 
for  a  half  century,  and  all  at  the  instigation  of  a  blatant 
Irishman  with  his  dinner  pail  and  dray  on  the  drifting 
sands  of  San  Francisco. 

With  cheap  labor  much  good  can  be  accomplished  which 
otherwise  must  remain  undone.  With  cheap  labor  a  forest 
can  be  cleared,  a  swamp  drained,  arid  lands  watered,  fac 
tories  and  mills  put  in  operation,  and  thousands  of  benef 
icent  enterprises  carried  on,  giving  food  and  raiment  to 
starving  millions  who  seek  not  luxuries  but  a  livelihood ;  at 
the  same  time  solving  many  problems,  such  as  high  cost 
of  living,  unemployment,  pauperism,  and  the  rest. 

The  policy  of  our  latter-day  labor  leaders  is  the  meanest 
and  most  selfish  of  any  thing  ever  before  invented,  and 
totally  opposed  to  their  own  interests  as  well  as  to  the 
interests  of  the  commonwealth,  and  to  the  purposes  of  the 
founders  of  the  republic,  which  was  the  greatest  good  to 
the  greatest  number  the  world  over. 

Labor  imagines  it  gets  the  better  of  its  employer  by 
securing  the  same  pay  for  fewer  hours,  but  the  fancied 


WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE?     459 

advantage  only  reacts  upon  the  laborer,  limiting  his  effi 
ciency  to  his  own  loss  in  the  end.  For  as  water  finds  its 
level,  so  the  price  of  labor  finds  itself  regulated,  not  by 
the  necessities  of  the  laborer  but  by  the  potential  price  of 
the  product.  Further  than  this  the  workingman  should 
know  that  money  obtained  by  indirect  methods  at  the  hand 
of  fraudulent  overseers,  howsoever  much  food  for  the  mind 
and  generous  living  it  will  buy,  will  never  make  for  im 
proved  citizenship. 

More  than  half  the  work  of  the  world  is  low  grade, 
as  has  been  said,  and  is  and  ought  to  be  done  by  cheap 
labor.  More  than  half  the  farm  and  factory  work  is 
unskilled  labor,  which  more  than  half  the  world  would  be 
glad  to  get  at  a  moderate  wage,  yet  the  laborites  forbid 
them,  preferring  to  see  them  starve.  Let  cheap  labor  be 
given  to  the  cheap  laborers  among  us  until  all  are  em 
ployed  ;  then  as  more  are  required  bring  in  the  best  obtain 
able  regardless  of  color  or  creed. 

We  need  the  Chinese  as  servants,  not  as  masters;  as 
subjects,  not  as  rulers ;  as  humble  workers  at  humble  work, 
not  as  arrogant  labor  lords  to  corner  industry,  whip  capital, 
and  ruin  all  honest  tradesmen  who  dare  to  manage  their 
business  in  their  own  way. 

We  do  not  want  Asiatics  to  come  in  unlimited  numbers, 
or  to  own  land  or  settle  themselves  here.  We  do  not  want 
their  children  born  here  to  become  citizens,  any  more  than 
we  want  apes  born  here  to  become  citizens.  Let  those  come 
only  for  whom  we  have  work,  which,  when  finished,  let 
them  be  returned  to  their  homes.  Europe  is  fast  killing  off 
her  surplus,  and  it  is  no  time  for  America  to  shackle  in 
dustry  or  permit  exploiters  to  manacle  cheap  labor. 

By  cheap  labor  I  do  not  mean  a  .starvation  wage,  but 
a  wage  such  as  is  paid  elsewhere,  and  such  as  will  enable 
us  to  compete  with  manufactures  elsewhere.  To  fix  a  mini 
mum  wage  is  to  deprive  thousands  of  laborers  of  any  wage 
at  all,  that  others  who  pay  the  exploiter  may  have  what 
work  there  is  at  a  higher  wage,  and  at  the  same  time 


460  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

stop  the  wheels  of  industry.  The  inexorable  law  of  supply 
and  demand  cannot  be  conventionally  ignored.  Manufact 
urers  cannot  be  compelled  by  law  to  employ  operatives 
at  a  higher  wage  than  the  value  of  the  product  will  justify, 
or  in  other  words  to  do  business  at  a  loss.  They  can  decline 
business  when  it  does  not  pay,  which  only  increases  the 
evil,  adding  distress  to  the  workers.  Unemployment  is 
worse  than  a  low  wage.  Successful  business  cannot  be 
conducted  as  a  charity ;  even  were  it  so,  it  is  of tener  charity 
to  give  the  low  grade  worker  his  low  wage  than  the  high 
grade  worker  his  high  wage. 

The  laborer  needs  protection  from  the  labor  leader  far 
more  than  from  his  employer.  Unemployment  exists  mainly 
because  of  the  method  of  laborism,  which  gives  all  the  work 
to  half  of  the  workers  at  an  exorbitant  wage,  forbidding 
a  low  wage  altogether.  The  first  step  toward  solving  the 
problem  of  the  unemployed  is  to  give  them  their  fair  share 
of  the  work. 

Labor  monopoly  is  worse  than  cooperative  or  corporate 
monopoly,  as  the  former  is  manipulated  by  irresponsible 
and  unscrupulous  persons,  with  nothing  to  lose  and  every 
thing  to  gain,  while  the  latter  has  at  least  some  money  or 
property  responsibility  and  therefore  runs  the  risk  of  loss. 

Cheap  labor  is  as  essential  to  general  industry  as  water 
is  to  health.  To  .deride  cheap  labor  and  moderate  though 
healthful  living  is  the  most  senseless  and  suicidal  of  policies. 
As  well  deride  mule  or  machine  labor,  cheap  power,  cheap 
food,  cheap  raw  material ;  as  well  denounce  at  once  all  the 
requirements  of  competitive  industry  and  give  up  all  at 
tempts  at  general  manufacturing.  And  yet  more  absurd  is 
it  to  set  up  the  inoffensive,  plodding  Chinaman  as  a  menace 
to  American  interests  while  harboring  Irish  agitators,  Ital 
ian  anarchists,  Russian  nihilists,  and  German  dynamiters 
and  bomb-planters. 

Some  laborers  are  worth  twice  as  much  as  others,  but 
all  who  pay  the  exploiter  must  be  paid  alike  by  the  em 
ployer.  Some  laborers  are  too  self-respecting  to  submit  to 


WHY  A  WORLD  INDUSTRIAL  CENTRE?     461 

the  commands  of  a  keeper;  these  must  be  punished  and 
not  permitted  to  work  at  all.  Some  mechanics  can  work 
twice  as  fast  as  others,  but  the  fast  brick-layers  must  not 
lay  a  brick  more  than  the  slowest  is  able  to  do.  The  whole 
organization  and  arrangement  is  placing  a  premium  on  in- 
competency  and  fraud. 

Can  we  not  have  cheap  labor  without  abusing  it?  And 
because  heartless  employers  have  abused  it  must  we  be 
thereby  forever  deprived  of  this  primary  essential  to  our 
progress  ?  We  cannot  have  true  and  permanent  prosperity 
so  long  as  our  prominent  business  men  permit  the  exploiters 
of  labor  to  run  their  business,  rule  the  courts,  and  fill  the 
public  offices  with  their  tools.  Labor  leaders  are  bad  enough 
any  where,  but  they  are  worse  in  San  Francisco  than  in 
most  other  places,  far  worse  than  at  San  Diego,  Los  Angeles, 
or  Seattle. 

Summary:  We  cannot  have  a  World  Centre  of  In 
dustry  around  San  Francisco  bay  without  manufactures; 
we  cannot  have  manufactures  without  cheap  labor ;  we  can 
not  have  cheap  labor  of  the  best  quality  without  the  ad 
mission  of  the  Chinese ;  we  cannot  have  the  Chinese  or  other 
cheap  labor  without  an  administration  at  Washington 
which  after  due  consideration  as  to  its  own  perpetuity, 
can  find  time  for  a  little  honest  and  common  sense  legisla 
tion  in  the  interests  of  the  people, — legislation  possibly 
tinctured  with  patriotism;  this,  and  the  extermination  at 
San  Francisco  of  labor  monopolists  and  exploiters  of  the 
workingman. 

In  this  great  work  San  Francisco  bay  and  California 
are  one;  city  and  harbor,  state  ocean  and  shore  are  a 
unit;  San  Francisco  bay  signifies  California,  and  Cali 
fornia  means  San  Francisco,  all  one  and  indivisible;  each 
in  its  sphere  doing  its  work  and  sharing  in  the  pleasure  and 
profit  of  it,  while  the  glory  of  magnificent  achievement 
shall  fall  on  all  alike. 

All  this  those  who  lay  the  foundations  for  San  Fran 
cisco's  future,  whether  near  or  remote  will  have  for  their 


462  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

serious  consideration.  The  development  is  sure  to  come, 
and  along  these  lines;  it  can  come  by  none  other.  And 
when  the  people  of  San  Francisco  bay  are  ready  to  unite 
and  purge  themselves  of  prejudice  and  their  several  cities 
of  industrial  and  political  demagogism ;  when  with  energy 
and  fearlessness  they  are  ready  to  take  their  destiny  into 
their  own  hands,  determined  on  securing  for  themselves 
the  supremacy  of  what  rightly  belongs  to  them,  whether 
on  sea  or  shore,  with  "Made  at  San  Francisco"  a  hall-mark 
of  merit  the  world  over,  there  will  be  such  an  industrial 
development  in  this  last  great  Centre  of  Industry  as  has 
never  yet  appeared  in  any  age  or  nation. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

REVIVAL  OP  CITIZENSHIP 

I  ) ARTS  of  the  preceding  chapters,  more  especially 
jL  those  relating  to  a  World  Centre  of  Industry  at  San 
Francisco  bay  and  the  adverse  influence  to  progress  ex 
ercised  by  the  leaders  and  monopolists  of  labor,  were  pre 
viously  published  in  pamphlet  form  and  mailed  to 
prominent  financial  men,  bankers,  merchants,  and  manu 
facturers  in  San  Francisco,  New  York,  and  elsewhere. 
Flattering  responses  came  in  from  men  of  various  moods. 
At  the  same  time  slowly  began  to  appear  evidence  of  re 
maining  life  in  the  sometime  enterprising  shores  of  the 
Pacific. 

Slowly  as  it  seemed,  yet  of  a  truth  quickly  for  a  com 
munity  so  overrun  with  demagogues  and  timid  money 
makers  ;  for  soon  it  became  evident  that  a  material  change 
had  come  over  the  industrial  aspect  of  the  city  and  bay 
shores  of  San  Francisco.  And  so  quietly  was  this  change 
of  sentiment  effected,  so  readily  were  our  best  men  con 
verted  to  the  necessity  of  concerted  action,  that  the  work 
was  practically  accomplished  before  the  outside  world 
knew  anything  about  it. 

For  a  period  previous  to  this  most  important  awaken 
ing,  Seneca  C.  Beach,  president  and  manager  of  the  Mer 
chants  and  Manufacturers  Association  of  San  Francisco, 
with  a  branch  office  at  Oakland,  and  a  strong  executive 
board,  had  been  issuing  a  monthly  bulletin,  and  working 
devotedly  against  the  inroads  of  unionized  labor  upon  the 
vital  interests  of  the  city,  and  though  he  had  much  to 

463 


464  IN    THESE    LATTER    DAYS 

contend  with  he  never  lost  courage,  but  was  always  con 
fident  of  ultimate  success. 

At  the  end  of  August,  1916,  Mr  Beach  writes:  " Sub 
stantial  progress  in  establishing  the  open  shop,  or  indus 
trial  freedom,  was  made  during  the  month,  though  several 
full-fledged  strikes  and  a  number  of  incipient  disorders 
were  rampant  throughout  San  Francisco.  There  were  no 
developments  of  a  sensational  character  during  the  month, 
though  many  new  allies  and  influences  were  enlisted  in  the 
movement  to  bring  about  industrial  justice. 

Thirty  days  thereafter  he  finds  that  "more  progress 
has  been  made  during  the  month  just  passed  towards  estab 
lishing  open  shop  conditions,  and  it  is  surprising  to  note 
what  a  determined  effort  on  the  part  of  the  business  com 
munity  for  law  and  order  has  accomplished  in  creating 
peaceful  conditions,  when  erstwhile  during  industrial  tur 
moil  personal  assaults  and  violence  against  the  non-union 
person  and  property  were  the  rule." 

As  generally  understood,  the  closed  shop  is  a  system 
prevailing  in  factories  conducted  under  a  fixed  rule  that 
none  but  union  men  in  good  standing  shall  be  employed. 
It  is  called  the  closed  shop  because  its  doors  are  barred 
against  all  employees  whom  the  union  does  not  recognize,  as 
it  is  contrasted  with  the  open  shop  where  both  union  and 
non-union  men  are  employed  without  discrimination  against 
either.  The  non-union  man  may  be  denied  union  member 
ship  ;  he  may  have  been  suspended  or  expelled,  or  he  may 
not  desire  membership. 

The  open  shop  is  the  store,  factory,  mill,  or  place  of 
business  where  any  competent  man  or  woman  may  work, 
regardless  of  membership  or  non-membership  in  a  union. 
It  is  based  on  the  theory  that  an  honest  day 's  work  is  worth 
a  full  day's  pay,  and  a  day's  pay  should  buy  a  full  day's 
work.  The  closed  shop  is  the  mother  of  strikes,  boycotts, 
picketing,  and  violence. 

There  is  a  universal  complaint  that  as  wages  are  in 
creased  a  large  class  of  wage  earners  become  less 


REVIVAL    OF    CITIZENSHIP  465 

tive,  and  the  failure  of  industrial  plants  to  make  sufficient 
or  reasonable  output  is  preventing  the  realization  of  much 
if  any  profit  from  operations.  The  attitude  of  such  wage- 
earners  is  disappointing.  Instead  of  taking  advantage  of 
the  present  wonderful  opportunity  to  make  large  earnings 
they  are  netting  no  more  than  when  wages  were  lower, 
the  cost  of  living  being  higher.  Meanwhile  the  whole  coun 
try  is  suffering  a  great  economic  loss  through  the  failure 
of  our  industrial  establishments  to  produce  the  volume  of 
goods  for  which  there  is  at  present  so  great  a  demand. 

The  civic  bodies  about  the  bay  came  to  the  front  and 
entered  heartily  the  crusade.  Notably  the  chambers  of  com 
merce  of  San  Francisco  exercised  a  powerful  influence  on 
the  side  of  reform,  increasing  their  membership  and  raising 
unlimited  funds.  The  boycott  and  other  labor-leading  in 
famies  were  overcome,  and  a  marked  improvement  was 
felt  in  the  general  condition  of  affairs. 

According  to  a  prominent  educator,  only  one  out  of 
twenty-five  thousand  persons  really  thinks,  and  only  five 
out  of  a  hundred  business  men  escape  failure.  A  dem 
agogue  never  thinks  about  any  one  but  himself.  There 
never  was  a  time  when  there  was  a  greater  demand  for 
men  of  brains  and  experience  in  business  as  well  as  in 
politics. 

They  are  particularly  needed  in  legislative  halls,  yet  the 
seats  of  the  mighty  are  occupied  by  cheap  politicians,  and 
flashy  agitators.  The  destructive  work  they  have  been 
doing  must  be  undone.  Who  will  prepare  for  the  after 
math  of  the  terrible  war? 

J.  E.  Edgerton,  president  of  the  Tennessee  manufactur 
ing  association,  put  this  concretely  when  he  said:  "When 
the  thinking  people  of  this  country  shall  come  to  consider 
seriously  the  demagogic  prattle  of  professional  politicians, 
and  the  cunningly  devised  pronouncements  of  political  plat 
forms,  and  attach  the  principal  importance  to  the  quality 
of  their  representatives  in  public  office;  when  they  shall 
assiduously  endeavor  to  select  for  the  administration  of 


466  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

their  affairs  only  those  men  of  whatever  class  who  are 
equipped  with  sufficient  brains  and  character;  and  when 
they  shall  resolve  not  to  tolerate  or  compromise  with  in- 
competency  and  political  crookedness,  they  may  expect  more 
satisfactory  returns  from  the  government." 

Referring  to  the  monstrous  injustice  of  the  administra 
tion  at  Washington,  John  P.  Irish  says : — '  *  The  inequality 
before  the  law  of  such  legislation  is  already  established  by 
the  Clayton  bill,  which  exempts  from  penalty  labor  unions 
for  conspiracy  in  restraint  of  trade,  while  all  others  are 
punished  for  such  conspiracy  by  fine  and  imprisonment. 
That  in  itself  is  such  an  appalling  act  that  the  penalizing 
of  non-union  labor  will  be  easily  obtained  from  a  congress 
capable  of  freeing  one  class  of  citizens  from  criminal  pen 
alties  to  which  all  others  are  subject. ' ' 

In  a  public  address  the  able  manager  of  the  employers' 
association  of  Washington  remarked  that  the  employer's 
problem  with  labor  means  the  employer's  refusal  to  sur 
render  his  business  to  arbitrary  labor  unions  and  give  the 
keys  to  the  business  agent  or  walking  delegate.  The  em 
ployer  has  no  particular  problem  with  the  individual 
laborer.  His  trouble  is  with  the  paid  agitator  and  trouble 
maker.  The  trouble  with  the  majority  of  the  unions  is 
that  they  are  subordinate  to  the  American  federation  of 
labor,  which  is  founded  on  the  unconscionable  principle 
that  might  is  right,  that  force  and  .violence  are  justifiable 
substitutes  for  the  reign  of  economic  law.  The  employer 
objects  to  the  arbitrary  restriction  of  the  output  of  work 
shop  and  field,  which  the  unions  seek  to  enforce  by  for 
bidding  apprentices,  by  opposing  modern  scientific  effi 
ciency  methods,  and  by  such  rules  as  that  of  the  brick 
layers'  union,  which  warns  the  workman  always  to  keep 
his  trowel  in  his  hand  in  order  that  both  hands  may  never 
be  free  to  handle  bricks. 

Then  there  is  the  rule  in  the  plumbers'  trade,  quoted 
by  Charles  W.  Eliot  of  Harvard :  Set  only  one  article — one 
basin  or  one  tub  in  a  day ;  that  shall  be  the  day 's  work  for 


REVIVAL    OF    CITIZENSHIP  467 

which  a  day's  pay  must  be  given.  Why?  Why  the  slow 
and  shiftless  ways  of  sloth  and  indifference?  The  entire 
policy  of  the  labor  leaders  was  curtly  expressed  by  a  Seattle 
agitator  who  exclaimed:  Never  mind  the  legislature  and 
the  courts.  Make  your  laws  in  the  unions  and  enforce  them 
on  the  job!  The  rule  against  apprentices  is  an  arbitrary 
interference  with  the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  an  assault 
on  the  inalienable  rights  of  man;  for  the  right  to  live 
means  the  right  to  earn  a  living  regardless  of  cards  and 
buttons. 

The  restriction  of  apprenticeships  makes  outlaws  of 
American  boys  beneath  their  country's  flag.  It  closes  the 
gates  of  opportunity  and  leaves  open  only  the  road  to  crime. 
If  our  sons  are  taught  trades  in  reform  schools,  peniten 
tiaries,  or  polytechnic  institutions,  they  are  denounced  as 
scabs  by  the  labor  unions.  If  they  attempt  to  earn  a  living 
they  are  likely  to  be  ostracized,  assaulted,  or  murdered 
either  in  Seattle  or  San  Francisco;  yet  the  declaration  of 
independence  guarantees  every  free  American  citizen  the 
right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 

What  is  such  a  guarantee  worth  if  a  man  must  starve 
unless  a  union,  whose  membership  is  frequently  composed 
of  foreigners,  gives  its  consent  that  he  may  eat?  Worse 
yet,  the  unions  arbitrarily  close  their  membership  rolls  in 
order  that  they  may  enforce  their  demands  for  shorter 
hours  and  higher  wages.  A  monopoly  of  labor  being  their 
goal,  those  profiting  by  that  monopoly  care  nothing  for 
the  rights  of  anybody  not  within  the  limited  circle  of  the 
elect.  The  employer  objects  to  the  boycott  and  picketing. 
The  boycott  is  a  conspiracy  whereby  a  number  of  union 
men  and  women,  with  minds  fatally  bent  on  mischief  and 
hearts  void  of  social  duty,  resolve  to  force  their  victim 
to  accede  to  their  demands  or  else  to  starve  him. 

By  insulting  a  victim's  patrons,  by  calling  them  scabs, 
rats,  and  unfair ;  by  jostling  and  striking,  the  pickets  sel 
dom  fail  to  rob  the  cash  register  of  the  man  they  pursue. 


468  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

The  lion  tears,  crushes,  rends.  The  boycott  is  the  wolf, 
symbol  of  starvation. 

The  employer's  trouble  with  labor  unions  is  that  no 
workman  is  taught  to  strive  for  efficiency.  It  opposes  every 
scientific  motion  study,  every  time  and  labor  saving  sys 
tem  of  the  age, — this  despite  the  fact  that  modern  scien 
tific  efficiency  methods  are  popular  with  workmen  wherever 
they  have  been  used.  Why  then  does  union  labor  object? 
Because  scientific  methods  are  based  on  the  piece  system, 
on  bonuses,  on  the  rule  that  a  dollar's  pay  should  obtain 
a  dollar 's  worth  of  service.  The  union  believes  in  loitering, 
in  malingering,  in  clogging  the  output.  The  two  slowest 
bricklayers  are  set  at  work  at  the  ends  of  a  wall  under 
construction,  why?  Because  the  end  workers  raise  the 
line,  and  until  their  snail-pace  has  called  for  another  layer 
the  work  of  intervening  men  must  stop.  This  one  example 
is  the  entire  case  of  the  sluggard  methods  of  labor-leading 
monopolists. 

"The  public  safety,"  says  James  A.  Emery,  "the  public 
convenience,  the  public  necessity,  industrial  and  military 
self-defence  alike  require  that  no  man  or  set  of  men  may 
possess  the  power  to  paralyze  intercourse  as  the  means 
of  compelling  acceptance  of  any  demand  which  they  may 
make  upon  the  carriers  of  the  country.  The  present  Sea 
man's  act  hangs  about  the  neck  of  American  shipping  as 
the  old  man  of  the  sea  clung  to  the  shoulders  of  Sinbad, 
strangling  his  power  and  handicapping  his  progress.  The 
lesson  of  the  hour  is  organization  for  the  American  em 
ployer,  so  that,  conscious  of  his  responsibilities,  he  may 
with  his  fellows  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder  in  the  defence 
of  his  rights,  and  the  study  and  development  of  sound 
policies  of  business  statesmanship  to  meet  the  serious  cir 
cumstances  of  this  day." 

It  was  our  ardent  hope  that  the  American  flag  might 
again  be  seen  upon  Pacific  merchantmen  notwithstanding 
ship  subsidies,  cheap  labor,  and  every  possible  advantage 
the  mikado  government  could  give  its  people;  and  not- 


REVIVAL    OF    CITIZENSHIP  469 

withstanding  the  adverse  policy  of  a  union  labor  congress, 
and  the  refusal  of  free  passage  for  our  ships  through 
the  Panama  canal,  we  could  but  feel  that  the  monopoly 
of  the  Pacific  trade  was  not  to  go  to  Japan  without  a  strug 
gle  for  it  on  the  part  of  our  merchants. 

Six  months  had  now  elapsed  since  the  sending  forth 
of  my  brochure.  Truly  a  change  had  come  over  the  face 
of  things.  The  spirit  of  purity  and  progress  once  more 
hovered  over  our  beloved  city.  Yet  crime,  though  in 
timidated,  still  put  up  a  sturdy  fight.  The  exploiters 
of  the  workingmen  would  not  willingly  relinquish  their 
influence  over  their  victims,  nor  withhold  their  fingers 
from  the  money  of  the  wage-earner.  But  although  long 
and  bittej  conflicts  were  before  us,  satisfaction  sat  on  the 
faces  of  men  as  they  went  about  their  business  with  fresh 
hopes  and  strong  determination. 

It  was  likewise  encouraging  to  note  that  notwithstand 
ing  the  evil  influences  at  Washington  the  higher  courts  of 
several  of  the  states  had  rendered  decisions  in  effect  that 
conspiracy  for  the  purpose  of  intimidation  or  coercion  was 
criminal;  that  to  injure  by  word  or  deed,  or  obstruct  or 
interfere  in  the  rights  of  citizens  by  any  person,  clan,  or 
coterie,  as  in  strikes  and  boycotts  is  a  crime,  and  subject 
to  prosecution  and  punishment  as  affecting  adversely  the 
welfare  of  the  community,  principles  I  had  previously  sev 
eral  times  enunciated. 

For  when  a  shore  line  of  a  thousand  miles  or  more  is 
seized  and  held  for  blackmail,  the  question  is  not  one  that 
affects  business  alone,  but  involves  the  government  itself, 
and  sharply  presents  the  question  whether  any  group  of 
citizens  should  be  allowed  to  possess  the  power  to  impede 
progress  and  imperil  the  lives  of  the  people  by  conspiring 
to  block  the  arteries  of  commerce. 

Japanese  shipyards  were  taxed  to  the  limit  of  their 
capacities.  Orders  for  ships  from  abroad  were  refused, 
as  the  yards  had  booked  orders  for  Japanese  ships  that 


470  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

would  keep  them  busy  for  two  years.    The  builders,  how 
ever,  were  handicapped  by  a  lack  of  material.    Boilers,  en 
gines,  and  other  fittings  can  not  be  had  at  very  reasonable 
prices  in  Japan,  for  they  can  not  be  manufactured  there 
as  cheaply  as  in  the  United  States  and  England. 

But  in  spite  of  all  handicaps,  Japan  is  losing  no  time  in 
taking  advantage  of  the  present  unparalleled  opportunities. 
Purchases  of  foreign  ships  have  been  made  at  very  high 
prices.  Although  the  keel  of  the  first  steel  vessel  was  laid 
in  Japan  as  late  as  1890,  the  total  shipping  tonnage  of  the 
country  at  the  present  time,  including  the  vessels  registered 
in  the  colonies,  is  no  less  than  2,518,000  gross  tons. 

The  Chinese  were  also  busy  at  their  yards  in  Shanghai 
and  Hongkong,  although,  as  in  Japan,  they  suffered  for 
want  of  materials.  One  Hongkong  company  was  at  work 
on  eight  ocean  freighters  for  Norwegian  owners.  Two  more 
of  a  similar  type  were  to  be  started  as  soon  as  facilities 
would  permit,  and  there  were  additional  contracts  for  five 
others.  This  company  recently  voted  to  increase  its  capital 
stock  to  $1,500,000. 

Before  we  entered  the  war  Senator  Phelan  assured  us 
that  its  close  "will  find  us  without  a  friend  in  the  family  of 
world  powers.  England  is  showing  her  unfriendly  attitude 
in  many  ways,  and  there  is  growing  evidence  of  her  inten 
tion  to  conduct  a  relentless  trade  war  against  us.  Although 
Japan  is  in  alliance  with  England  at  this  time,  she  would 
not  hesitate  to  break  that  for  an  alliance  with  Germany 
or  anyone  else  if  the  achievement  of  her  own  ambitions 
seemed  to  favor  it.  It  would  require  no  more  than  the 
signing  of  a  piece  of  paper.  England  is  no  more  anxious 
for  Japan  to  learn  American  trade  secrets  than  she  is  for 
Germany  to  do  so.  It  may  be  that  Japan's  peculiar  posi 
tion  in  world  politics  will  prove  a  deterrent  factor  in  Eng 
land's  aggressions  on  our  trade.  The  Japanese  question 
is  one  which  we  on  the  Pacific  coast  must  solve  alone.  It 
is  not  understood  in  the  east,  and  in  most  of  the  United 
States  the  people  would  cheerfully  sacrifice  California  on 


REVIVAL    OF    CITIZENSHIP  471 

the  altar  of  peace,  rather  than  make  an  international  issue 
of  our  land  problem.  For  the  time  being  we  have  checked 
the  inroads  of  the  Japanese  in  California,  but  for  that 
reason  we  will  have  to  watch  carefully  their  development 
in  Mexico.  We  may  find  in  time  that  the  Mexican  situation 
will  have  a  different  phase  from  what  it  has  at  present." 
The  China  Mail  Company  was  formed  two  or  three 
years  ago,  when  the  old  Pacific  Mail  liner  China  was 
bought.  The  inauguration  of  a  transpacific  line  by  the 
Chinese  company  created  something  of  a  furor  in  China. 

There  are  those,  and  not  a  few,  who  with  me  feel  as 
sured  that  in  the  somewhat  distant  future  there  will  be 
around  the  bay  of  San  Francisco  a  World  Centre  of  In 
dustry,  involving  centralized  civilization,  a  world  com 
mercial  clearing  house,  a  world  city  of  highest  culture, 
and  in  the  nearer  future  a  city  as  much  larger  than  New 
York  as  New  York  is  now  larger  .than  San  Francisco. 
Nor  are  they  schemers  or  dreamers  drawing  from  a  store 
of  fantastic  imagery  who  thus  see  and  say,  but  men  of 
sober  thought  and  solid  opinion  based  upon  the  logic  of 
conditions  and  events,  leaders  of  men  in  leading  cities, 
as  London,  New  York,  and  San  Francisco. 

The  bald  facts  are  these,  which  the  skeptic  may  not 
gainsay  if  he  would.  At  the  ultimate  west  lies  the  ultimate 
ocean,  around  whose  opulent  shores  inexorable  necessity 
has  laid  out  the  grounds  whereupon  man  is  to  achieve  his 
ultimate  endeavor.  There  is  no  farther  west,  no  other 
great  ocean,  no  other  such  favored  lands;  it  is  here  or 
nowhere  that  further  improvement  comes  to  the  race. 

And  do  we  think  that  in  the  midst  of  universal  evo 
lution  man  has  reached  his  limit  ?  It  may  be  so  in  Europe, 
in  Mexico,  most  likely  so  in  Germany;  it  is  not  so  in  the 
United  States  of  America,  nor  in  the  state  of  California. 

Herein  is  no  speculation.  Your  belief  or  my  belief  as 
to  the  affairs  of  this  world,  or  of  any  other  state  of  exist 
ence,  does  not  affect  the  facts  established  by  destiny  long 


472  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

before  this  universe  was  created,  if  indeed  it  ever  was 
created. 

We  may  be  pretty  sure  that  this  earth  will  not  be  taken 
to  pieces  and  enlarged,  or  rearranged  with  another  west, 
or  another  great  ocean.  We  may  be  pretty  sure  that  no 
other  more  favored  spot  for  future  development,  or  a  spot 
with  more  healthful  conditions,  no  better  bay,  no  superior 
geographical  situation  will  be  found,  or  that  from  the  lab 
oratory  of  nature  a  purer  air  will  be  generated,  or  a  finer 
overspreading  sky,  or  a  more  equable  temperature,  or  a 
happier  environment  be  presented. 

Thus  far  we  have  to  go  upon  the  logic  of  the  actual 
and  of  the  only  possible.  But  there  is  a  more  threatening 
beyond  which  no  human  being  may  attempt  to  fathom. 
Among  the  races  of  men  that  inhabit  the  earth,  which  of 
them  all  will  occupy  the  shores  of  San  Francisco  bay  when 
this  favored  spot  reaches  its  supremacy?  All  that  we  can 
now  say  is  that  present  indications  point  to  a  rather  dimin 
utive  humanity,  with  yellow  skin,  high  cheek  bones,  eyes 
oblique  sinister  and  cunning,  and  flatish  nose.  Having 
thus  so  early  secured  the  industrial  rule  of  the  great  ocean, 
Asia  may  for  the  present  rest  content,  so  long  as  we  have 
at  Washington  pedagogic  rule  with  a  subservient  coterie 
for  a  congress. 

Or  it  may  be  a  mongrel  race  which  in  due  time  shall 
appear  upon  these  happy  shores,  an  incongruous  mixture, 
the  material  for  which  we  have  accumulated  much,  and 
are  rapidly  accumulating  more.  As  regards  the  inter 
relation  of  races,  citizenship  of  the  great  American  repub 
lic,  it  will  be  an  interesting  study  as  the  centuries  roll 
along,  in  which  those  who  so  desire  may  speculate  to  their 
hearts  content. 

Either  this,  or  the  white  race  must  prepare  to  hold  its 
own,  must  be  always  and  forever  prepared  to  fight,  the 
white  to  fight  the  yellow,  San  Francisco  to  fight  Japan, 
even  as  Venice  fought  the  Turks,  for  a  thousand  years 
if  necessary,  relegating  to  the  infant  Sabbath-school  the 


REVIVAL    OF    CITIZENSHIP  473 

prayers  of  pope  and  the  peace-preaching  of  propagandists. 
For  God  made  man  a  fighting  animal,  the  same  as  the  lions 
and  the  tigers,  as  witness  Mexico  and  Germany  this  day; 
and  who  shall  question  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  the 
Almighty  ? 

And  now  like  a  bolt  from  the  blue  comes  the  unexpected. 
At  the  November  election,  with  Kansas,  Ohio,  Utah,  Wash 
ington,  and  Wyoming,  California  goes  over  to  the  demo 
crats,  and  gives  the  presidency  for  another  term  to  Wood- 
row  Wilson.  The  disappointment  was  deadening.  The 
man  who  of  all  others  living  had  wrought  the  greatest 
injury  to  California  by  California  is  continued  in  power! 
The  man  who  had  ignored  our  interests,  driven  our  ships 
from  the  ocean,  turned  our  commerce  over  to  an  alien 
nation,  and  left  exposed  to  the  ravages  of  war  1200  miles 
of  national  seaboard ;  the  man  who  for  votes  had  sold  him 
self  to  labor  leaders,  filled  the  public  offices  with  rabid 
partisans,  humiliated  himself  before  blustering  Japan,  and 
by  his  self-sufficient  incompetency  had  brought  upon  us 
the  contempt  of  all  nations;  we  who  most  disapproved  to 
ratify  his  wrong  doing  by  returning  him  to  his  high  office ; 
it  was  monstrous! 

For  it  was  California  and  none  other  that  turned  the 
scale.  It  was  we  who  had  the  deciding  vote  to  cast;  we 
who  prided  ourselves  because  of  our  purity,  who  hated 
indirection  of  any  sort,  who  abhorred  hypocrisy,  bad  faith, 
and  broken  pledges. 

Then  came  the  question,  how  did  it  happen?  Who  or 
what  brought  it  about?  On  whom  was  to  rest  forever  this 
disgraceful  honor?  For  answer  all  eyes  turned  to  the 
manipulators  of  the  old  republican  party  in  California,  a 
coterie  of  rather  small  men  for  the  occasion.  One  of  them 
was  out  of  town ;  another,  when  questioned,  refused  to  talk, 
saying  it  was  more  dignified  not  to  discuss  the  affair.  He 
was  quite  right;  the  maker  of  presidents  should  be  digni- 


474  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

fied;  the  owl  and  the  ass  are  dignified  until  they  open 
their  mouth  to  speak. 

And  as  for  fledgling  patriots,  there  is  somewhere  a 
school  for  boys  where  good  manners  are  taught.  Never 
mind,  we  will  take  heart  and  readjust  ourselves.  Never 
yet  was  there  such  a  happening  as  unmitigated  evil  any 
more  than  unmitigated  good.  We  will  see  presently  what 
good  is  to  be  extracted  from  this  evil. 

Among  the  many  expressions  of  appreciation  received 
by  the  coterie  of  little  ones  came  the  following  one  from 
Tulare,  "We,  the  undersigned  repubicans  of  Tulare,  de 
sire  to  express  to  you  our  deep  appreciation  of  the  ability 
with  which  you  and  your  associates  conducted  the  pre 
liminary  campaign  plans  whose  ultimate  results  have  been 
so  strikingly  successful  in  the  final  election,  whereby  the 
electoral  vote  of  the  state  has  been  given  to  Woodrow 
Wilson,  democrat.  The  cordial  and  kindly  relationship 
maintained  between  the  republican  presidential  candidate 
and  the  governor  of  California  so  ardently  promoted  by 
you,  with  the  apparently  cheerful  acquiescence  of  Mr 
Hughes  during  the  period  of  his  visit  to  this  state,  were 
certainly  decisive  factors  in  bringing  about  the  pleasing 
result  of  Tuesday's  election.  With  California  imperatively 
required  by  Mr  Wilson  in  order  that  his  success  might 
be  assured,  the  tremendous  importance  of  your  official 
activities  early  in  the  campaign  must  be  apparent  to  every 
true  republican.  It  is  only  to  be  regretted  that  a  change 
in  management  of  the  campaign,  though  happily  coming 
too  late  to  throw  the  state  to  Hughes,  yet  prevented  Wil 
son  from  achieving  a  larger  victory  in  this  state.  But 
meager  as  Wilson's  majority  is,  we  thank  you  for  the  wise 
and  effective  exercise  of  loyalty  to  the  principles  of  the 
republican  party,  whose  effort  has  been  to  give  us  four 
years  more  of  democratic  rule.  For  saving  the  country 
from  Hughes  and  from  republican  domination  politically 
we  offer  this  expression  of  our  profound  gratitude." 

For  the  whole  story  we  must  go  back  to  the  Chicago 


EEVIVAL   OF    CITIZENSHIP  475 

convention  of  1912,  where  astute  party  leaders  from  New 
York  played  the  game  in  such  a  vile  way  as  would  have 
brought  a  blush  to  a  three-card  monte  dealer.  By  trickery 
they  stole  the  convention  from  Theodore  Roosevelt,  whom 
they  could  easily  have  elected,  to  lay  their  spoils  at  the 
feet  of  Mr  Taft,  whose  further  services  the  nation  declined 
with  thanks.  For  it  was  under  Taft,  who  for  a  president  of 
the  United  States  was  a  travesty  on  good  sense,  that  repub 
licanism  reached  its  lowest  depths,  culminating  in  the 
theft  of  the  Chicago  convention  by  his  adherents.  Stung 
to  action  by  the  insults  and  injustice  brought  upon  them 
by  the  New  York  sharpers,  the  victims  of  their  intrigue 
contested  the  election  which  followed  as  the  progressive 
party,  and  by  a  minority  vote  the  office  was  thus  given 
to  Wilson.  So  with  the  wreckage  of  their  party  was 
wrecked  any  hope  of  further  distinction  by  these  the  most 
brilliant  champions  of  republicanism  in  America. 

The  two  Chicago  conventions  of  1916,  republican  and 
progressive,  were  held  simultaneously  in  the  hope  of  bring 
ing  the  parties  together  so  that  they  might  win  the  elec 
tion  from  the  democrats.  The  eastern  republican  leaders 
seemed  so  disposed,  but  so  arrogant  were  the  little  fellows 
in  California  that  nothing  could  be  done  with  them.  They 
would  magnanimously  permit  the  progressives  to  vote  for 
their  candidate,  but  they  would  not  affiliate  nor  share  with 
them  the  honors  or  responsibilities  of  the  campaign. 

When  the  republicans  nominated  Hughes,  and  the  pro 
gressives  were  about  to  name  Theodore  Roosevelt,  the  latter 
declined  to  run,  fearing  that  by  so  doing  the  election  might 
go  to  the  democrats,  though  as  matters  turned  out,  if  he 
had  remained  in  the -field  he  might  have  been  elected.  Mr 
Hughes  proved  to  be  not  the  man  for  the  occasion.  But 
with  a  magnanimity  and  self-obliteration  in  marked  con 
trast  to  the  narrow-minded  selfishness  of  the  San  Fran 
cisco  politicians,  and  with  a  patriotism  rare  in  any  age 
or  nation,  and  to  the  keen  disappointment  of  his  friends 
and  supporters,  Mr  Roosevelt  retired  as  a  contestant  and 


476  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

threw  his  great  strength  and  personality  in  favor  of  his 
rival. 

The  contest  was  close,  and  several  days  elapsed  in  count 
ing  the  votes;  but  when  the  work  was  done,  and  it  was 
shown  that  beyond  a  doubt  Wilson  was  elected,  a  wail  went 
up  that  was  heard  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  And 
they  cursed  California,  Chicago  cursed  us — that  did  not 
greatly  harm  us — and  we  cursed  ourselves. 

What  was  the  cause  of  it?  How  could  a  majority  of 
the  whole  hundred  million  people  of  the  United  States  be 
so  blind  and  stupid? 

When  Governor  Johnson  returned  from  the  Chicago 
convention  pledged  to  the  support  of  Mr  Hughes,  for  whom 
he  campaigned  with  all  his  powerful  influence,  he  was 
treated  with  scant  courtesy  by  both  Hughes  and  the  stand- 
pat  republicans,  whereby  Hughes  lost  his  election  and  the 
standpatters  were  relegated  to  limbo.  Johnson  was  chosen 
United  States  senator  by  an  overwhelming  vote  of  both 
republicans  and  progressives. 

It  requires  no  great  seer  to  foretell  the  future  of  the 
democratic  party.  It  requires  no  great  insight  to  see  why 
reactionary  republicanism  lies  dead  to-day.  Even  Elihu 
Root,  the  " smartest  lawyer"  in  America,  cannot  resusci 
tate  it;  Elihu  Root,  the  smartest  lawyer  and  the  biggest 
fool. 

As  for  the  democratic  party,  it  will  be  shelfed  after 
Woodrow  Wilson  is  through  with  it,  that  is  if  Mr  Wilson 
leaves  any  of  it.  It  will  not  pass  out  of  existence.  Such 
a  suggestion  would  cause  the  blood  of  Dixie  to  run  cold ; 
besides,  the  north  needs  it  as  a  buffer.  We  must  have 
a  party  balance-wheel  in  America ;  we  are  made  that  way. 
Mexico  does  not  need  it.  Porfirio  Diaz  tried  one  man  rule 
and  found  it  to  work  well.  Woodrow  Wilson  affected  the 
party  method  for  Mexico,  and  he  is  hunting  Villa  yet, 
only  that  he  does  not  want  to  find  him. 

Why  did  California  go  for  Wilson  ?  asks  F.  W.  Kellogg. 
Why  did  Utah  go  democratic  for  the  first  time  in  years? 


REVIVAL    OF    CITIZENSHIP  477 

Why  is  it  that  in  the  east,  where  Wilson  expected  most, 
he  showed  weakness,  and  in  the  west,  where  he  feared  de 
feat,  he  won  a  victory? 

There  are  those  here  in  California  to-day  who  think 
they  can  give  the  answer  to  these  questions,  and  give  them 
in  good  plain  English.  These  people  say  that  California 
was  alienated  from  the  republican  party  when  the  repub 
lican  state  central  committee  of  California  ignored  John 
son  and  Rowell  and  spent  their  time,  not  in  cordially  wel 
coming  the  progressive  republicans  back  into  the  repub 
lican  fold,  but  in  humiliating  and  discrediting  the  pro 
gressive  leaders. 

Hughes  and  Johnson  were  in  the  Virginia  hotel  at  Long 
Beach  at  the  same  time.  Hughes  failed  even  to  ask  to  see 
Johnson,  and  then  and  there  he  lost  the  presidency  of  the 
United  States. 

Of  the  many  articles  published  throughout  the  country 
the  following  presentation  of  the  subject  in  the  San  Fran 
cisco  Examiner  is  the  fairest  and  ablest  I  have  seen :  l '  Cali 
fornia  has  maintained  its  reputation  for  doing  surprising 
things  in  politics, ' '  the  writer  says.  ' '  That  reputation  has 
been  concrete  since  1910,  when  Hiram  W.  Johnson  first  sat 
himself  down  in  the  gubernatorial  chair  at  Sacramento 
by  grace  of  a  flattering  vote  of  the  people.  The  nation  has 
come  to  expect  strange  results  from  elections  in  this  state. 
And  it  hasn't  been  disappointed.  In  no  state  in  the  union 
do  returns  on  this  presidential  contest  offer  so  much  mate 
rial  for  political  gossip  as  in  California. 

"Republicans  outnumbering  democrats  and  progres 
sives  two  to  one  registered  for  this  election.  Hiram  John 
son,  a  registered  progressive,  will  go  to  the  United  States 
senate  by  a  plurality  estimated  as  anywhere  from  185,000 
to  205,000.  His  democratic  opponent,  George  S.  Patton, 
had  not  the  ghost  of  a  chance.  The  governor  campaigned 
for  Charles  Evans  Hughes.  And  yet  Woodrow  Wilson  car 
ried  California.  The  republicans  of  this  state,  if  registra 
tion  counts  for  anything,  nominated  and  elected  Johnson 


478  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

progressive  senator.  The  republicans  of  this  state,  if  reg 
istration  counts  for  anything,  elected  Woodrow  Wilson, 
democrat,  president. 

"Governor  Johnson  and  Chester  Rowell  and  their  co- 
workers  have,  since  the  progressive  national  convention  in 
Chicago,  devoted  themselves  to  building  up  in  California 
what  they  term  a  new  republicanism,  which  is  really  non- 
partisan.  That  sort  of  republicanism  has  made  Governor 
Johnson  a  United  States  senator  by  an  overwhelming 
popular  vote.  But  it  also  has  elected  Woodrow  Wilson 
president. 

"Politicians  point  to  several  incidents  that  must  be 
considered  in  reviewing  this  campaign  in  California.  Chief 
of  these  is  the  controversy  between  Chester  Rowell  and 
William  H.  Crocker  at  the  time  Hughes  came  here.  Both 
of  them  as  national  committeemen  were  invited  to  meet; 
Hughes  in  Portland;  Rowell  accepted.  As  a  progressive 
member  of  the  republican  national  committee  he  accom 
panied  Hughes  to  San  Francisco,  and  talked  the  Hiram 
Johnson  brand  of  politics  that  is  so  popular  in  this  state. 

"But  at  the  ferry  Hughes,  upon  his  arrival  here,  was 
taken  in  charge  by  Crocker  and  Francis  V.  Keesling,  then 
chairman  of  the  republican  state  central  committee.  He 
rode  with  them  to  the  Palace  hotel.  Rowell  rode  in  another 
machine.  Hughes  was  in  their  hands  during  all  the  time 
he  was  in  the  state. 

"At  the  Hughes  meeting  in  the  Auditorium  here  it 
had  been  expected  that  Johnson,  naturally,  as  governor 
and  a  supporter  of  Hughes  would  preside  at  the  republican 
candidate's  rally.  But  Johnson  was  a  candidate  for  sen 
ator.  So  was  Willis  Booth,  republican,  of  Los  Angeles. 
Crocker  and  Keesling  supported  Booth.  They  fought  John 
son's  campaign  for  the  republican  nomination.  So  Crocker 
ruled  that  Johnson  should  not  preside  at  the  Hughes  meet 
ing  and  that  he,  Crocker,  should.  So  Johnson  wasn't 
present.  That  started  the  Crocker-Rowell  controversy, 
during  which  Rowell  was  credited  with  telling  Hughes 


REVIVAL    OF    CITIZENSHIP  479 

that  he  was  in  the  hands  of  the  "wolves  of  the  old  guard 
republicanism."  By  that  he  referred  to  Crocker,  Kees- 
ling,  et  al.  During  the  primary  campaign,  Johnson  nightly 
referred  to  "William  H.  Crocker  and  his  inherited  South 
ern  Pacific  millions."  That  caused  a  bit  of  political  ill 
feeling. 

"Then  came  the  party  conventions  at  Sacramento  in 
September,  dominated  in  the  case  of  republicans  and  pro 
gressives  by  the  governor,  and  Keesling  was  deposed  as 
chairman  of  the  republican  state  central  committee,  and 
Johnson's  kind  of  republicans  were  appointed  on  that, 
body.  All  those  things,  while  neither  Rowell,  Crocker, 
Keesling,  nor  any  of  the  leaders  of  the  two  factions  of  re 
publicanism  in  California  will  say  so  for  publication,  caused 
the  defeat  of  Hughes  in  this  state." 

As  Mr  Rowell  reports,  "What  Crocker  said  to  me  was 
that  he  would  be  delighted  to  have  the  governor  present 
at  all  social  affairs  participated  in  by  the  republican  can 
didate  while  he  was  in  the  state,  biit  that  he  didn't  want 
him  at  any  political  affairs. 

' '  California  was  lost  to  Hughes  when  Crocker  and  Kees 
ling  took  him  prisoner  at  the  state  line  and  reduced  him 
from  a  presidential  candidate  to  the  stalking  horse  of  their 
sneaking  man-hunt  against  Johnson.  He  did  not  under 
stand  the  situation,  but  they  did,  and  they  deliberately 
risked  republican  defeat  in  the  nation  rather  than  permit 
any  appearance  of  recognition  of  Johnson  or  of  progres- 
sivism  in  California.  The  present  republican  state  organi 
zation  has  done  its  best  to  retrieve  the  treason  and  blunder 
of  its  predecessors,  and  Hiram  Johnson  has  made  more 
speeches  for  Hughes  in  this  campaign  than  any  other  man 
in  the  United  States,  but  the  injury  already  done  was  so 
great  that  we  were  not  able  quite  to  undo  it. 

"There  was  a  crime  perpetrated  on  California,  the 
crime  of  treason,  which  may  impose  upon  the  world  con 
sequences  untold.  Who  were  the  traitors  ?  First  there  was 
the  Times;  second  there  were  these  innocents,  Francis  V. 


480  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

Keesling,  whose  soul  was  just  small  enough  to  jeopardize  a 
presidential  election  for  a  little  limelight  on  his  own  ridicu 
lous  gubernatorial  aspirations;  and  William  H.  Crocker 
whose  ignorance  of  politics  is  as  complete  as  his  inexperi 
ence,  and  both  are  total.  It  is  little  consolation  that  the 
perpetrators  of  it  have  been  ejected  from  political  power. 
They  ought  to  be  buried  so  deep  they  can  never  be  resur 
rected,  and  their  names  ought  to  be  execrated  until  they  are 
forgotten,  which  will  be  when  the  names  of  Judas  and 
Cataline,  and  Ganelon,  and  Fawkes,  and  Arnold  are  for 
gotten  or  their  crimes  forgiven.  And  to  this  end  there 
are  men  in  California  ready  to  devote  time,  money,  and 
political  power.  Do  the  old  guard  wish  to  challenge  it?" 

1 1  Calif ornians  know  full  well  what  lost  this  state  to 
Hughes, ' '  said  Governor  Johnson.  '  *  A  few  petty  politicians 
acting  with  the  Los  Angeles  Times  and  one  or  two  others 
so  misused  Mr  Hughes  and  his  visit  to  California,  that  the 
injury  they  did  we  were  unable  to  undo.  When  Mr  Hughes 
came  into  our  state  Crocker  and  Keesling,  aided  and  abetted 
by  the  Times  and  a  small  coterie,  created  a  situation  in 
which  they  made  it  appear  that  Mr  Hughes  was  entirely 
reactionary,  and  that  he  was  neither  in  accord  with  nor 
sympathetic  with  California's  progress  and  achievement. 
It  was  not  alone  by  their  public  ultimatum  that  Mr  Hughes 
should  have  nothing  to  do  with  progressives  in  California, 
but  it  was  the  atmosphere  they  created  about  our  candidate. 
Californians  looked  aghast,  and  unfortunately  believed  that 
the  situation  created  by  Crocker,  Keesling,  and  the  Times 
presented  and  revealed  the  mind  of  Mr  Hughes,  and  that 
the  mind  thus  revealed  was  what  long  ago  California  had 
passed  by  and  repudiated. 

"But  it  was  not  ignoring  or  even  insulting  individuals 
that  did  the  greatest  harm ;  it  was  ignoring  a  state,  and  its 
record  of  progressive  and  humanitarian  legislation,  a  great 
commonwealth  that  had  broken  its  political  chains,  and 
escaped  forever  from  political  bondage.  Californians  saw 
the  men  who  would  return  them  to  the  disgraceful  condi- 


REVIVAL    OF    CITIZENSHIP  481 

tions  from  which,  after  tremendous  struggle  and  sacrifice, 
they  had  finally  emerged,  surrounding  with  an  impassable 
cordon  the  presidential  candidate,  and  openly  proclaiming 
that  none  should  be  permitted  near  who  believed  in  the 
newly  won  political  freedom.  It  was  the  achievement,  the 
progress,  the  accomplishment,  the  political  liberty  of  Cali 
fornia  that  these  petty  politicians  ignored  and  affronted. 

"My  own  contest  was  ended  with  the  primary  of  August 
29th.  Notwithstanding  my  success  was  assured,  after  the 
primary  I  campaigned  California  for  Hughes,  doing  my 
utmost  to  undo  the  injury. 

"California  citizenship  is  proud,  sensitive,  discriminat 
ing,  independent,  and  educated.  No  man,  no  set  of  men 
can  deliver  it  or  any  part  of  it.  A  quarter  of  a  century 
of  infamous  corporation  rule,  which  could  not  be  broken 
because  of  the  old  political  convention  system,  but  against 
which  we  were  striving,  and  six  years  of  triumph  and  ac 
complishment  under  a  direct  primary  had  given  our  people 
a  full  and  penetrating  knowledge  of  the  two  systems,  and 
no  matter  what  may  be  their  political  affiliations,  they  will 
never  return  to  the  old  reactionary  corporation  government 
of  which  they  rid  themselves  in  1910. 

"When  Hughes  came  to  California  our  people  saw  first 
with  amazement,  then  with  sadness,  then  with  increasing 
indignation  that  apparently  he  was  wholly  in  charge  of 
those  who  represented  the  old  system,  and  the  picture  pre 
sented  to  our  people  was  one  that  Crocker,  Keesling,  and 
Otis,  and  a  few  acting  with  them,  so  impressed  upon  the 
recollection  of  our  electorate,  that  despite  our  efforts  it 
could  not  be  wholly  eliminated. 

"There  are  many  things  which  might  be  added,  many 
that  may  still  have  to  be  related,  but  it  is  a  matter  of  regret 
that  any  statement  should  be  necessary  at  this  time  con 
cerning  the  result  in  California.  It  would  not  be  necessary 
but  for  the  indecency  of  Otis  and  the  Los  Angeles  Times 
in  their  present  publication  designed  to  cuttle-fish  the  situa 
tion  so  that  their  responsibility  might  be  over-looked  or 

16 


482  IN   THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

forgotten.  If  California  has  been  the  deciding  factor  in 
the  election,  William  H.  Crocker,  Francis  V.  Keesling, 
Harrison  Gray  Otis,  and  the  few  acting  in  concert  with 
them  have  the  proud  distinction  of  having  made  a  president 
of  the  United  States,  and  Woodrow  Wilson  owes  them  a 
debt  that  he  never  can  repay." 

Meanwhile  the  democrats  claim  to  be  the  only  progres 
sive  party,  now  that  standpat  republicanism  is  dead.  It  is 
well  enough  for  them  to  think  so  if  thereby  they  may  be 
induced  to  progress  in  any  right  direction;  but  they  will 
learn  in  time  that  the  progressiveism  of  Woodrow  Wilson — 
one  step  forward,  two  backward,  hesitate,  and  side  step — 
does  not  keep  time  with  the  progressiveism  of  Hiram  John 
son,  and  that  the  standards  of  honor  and  integrity  differ 
in  some  respects  in  Dixie  and  in  California. 

In  conclusion  may  we  not  ask,  Did  Mr  Wilson  mean 
what  he  said  when  he  declared  he  could  see  no  difference 
in  what  the  nations  of  Europe  were  fighting  for,  or  when 
he  said  that  the  fate  of  the  world  depended  upon  the  defeat 
of  the  kaiser?  Which? 

In  either  case  he  was  scarcely  the  man  to  say  to  the  mes 
sengers  of  the  well-nigh  beaten  and  bankrupted  Allies  who 
prostrated  themselves  before  him  in  their  gratitude,  "You 
must  not  thank  me,  but  rather  my  adversaries,  Roosevelt 
and  the  rest,  who  roused  public  opinion  to  a  sense  of  the 
situation,  and  forced  me  to  see  in  what  direction  my  own 
interests  lay" ;  adding  perhaps  sub  rosa,  "but  I  generally 
take  what  comes  my  way." 

It  does  not  speak  well  either  for  the  perspicacity  of 
the  American  people  or  for  the  acumen  of  their  repre 
sentatives  at  Washington  that  it  should  take  them  two 
years  to  see  what  was  plainly  apparent  to  the  thoughtful 
mind  immediately  upon  the  rape  of  Belgium.  Had  the 
president  then  acted  promptly,  upon  his  own  initiative,  and 
protested,  with  proper  preparedness,  which  course  would 
have  indicated  the  statesman  in  place  of  the  politician,  the 


REVIVAL    OF    CITIZENSHIP  483 

German  emperor,  mad  as  he  is,  would  scarcely  have  placed 
himself  in  his  present  entangling  predicament.  For  which 
delinquency  on  the  part  of  the  president  we  have  now  to 
pay  the  price  of  producing  for  the  slaughter  millions  of 
American  men  and  billions  of  American  money. 

Asked  what  he  would  have  done  had  he  been  president 
when  the  Lusitania  was  sunk,  Mr  Roosevelt  replied,  "Had 
I  been  president  the  Lusitania  would  not  have  been  sunk.'' 

It  is  unfortunate  at  this  juncture  to  have  as  chief  mag 
istrate  a  collegian,  unfamiliar  with  affairs  and  afflicted 
with  jealousy,  a  weak  master  of  weak  men,  overwhelmed 
by  egotism  and  self-sufficiency,  and  obsessed  by  a  passion 
for  power  and  place, — characteristics  here  made  manifest 
in  the  selection  for  the  highest  offices  of  fourth-rate  men, 
whose  only  fitness  for  the  management  of  affairs  of  state 
during  the  most  critical  period  of  the  nation's  existence  is 
in  their  subserviency  to  the  will  of  the  president;  and  so 
we  have  for  war-lords  a  Daniels  and  a  Baker,  while  Roose 
velt  is  refused  a  volunteer  army  for  France  and  Leonard 
Wood  is  relegated  to  obscurity.  Even  his  own  Congress 
Mr  Wilson  dare  not  leave  to  itself,  but  must  personally 
guide  it  along  his  devious  ways  between  fear  and  fustian. 

In  the  diverse  interests  of  these  American  states  the 
west  is  ill-understood  by  the  east.  Our  friends  of  the 
Atlantic  seaboard  and  midcontinent  do  not  yet  realize  the 
paramount  importance,  not  only  to  America  and  the  west 
ern  coast  but  to  the  world,  of  our  supremacy  in  the  Pacific, 
of  preparedness  for  the  on-coming  millions  of  Asia  just 
now  emerging  from  barbarism,  of  the  friendship  of  China 
and  a  proper  guard  against  the  subtleties  and  sinister  influ 
ences  of  Japan.  To  these  and  other  important  issues  incu 
bating  upon  this  greatest  of  oceans  the  east  is  as  indifferent 
as  it  is  ignorant. 

Nevertheless  in  all  our  several  and  varied  infelicities 
we  find  a  font  of  consolation.  In  this  misfit  election  of 
Woodrow  Wilson  we  learn  two  things.  First,  that  the 


484  IN    THESE    LATTER   DAYS 

political  as  well  as  the  industrial  star  of  empire  is  making 
its  westward  way  to  its  final  place  of  rest  over  San  Fran 
cisco  bay,  where  awaits  the  World  Centre  of  Industry. 
And  secondly,  that  as  the  civil  war  brought  home  to  us 
the  fact  that  these  American  states  are  a  concrete  com 
monwealth,  one  and  indivisible;  and  as  the  Spanish  war 
opened  our  eyes  to  our  true  position  as  a  world  power; 
and  as  the  European  war  transferred  the  world's  financial 
centre  from  London  to  New  York,  so  this  late  election  freak 
speaks  in  clearest  tones  the  fateful  words  that  political 
supremacy  is  slipping  westward,  and  that  henceforth  in 
the  affairs  of  the  nation  California  is  a  force  to  be  reckoned 
with,  of  which  the  party  in  power  at  Washington,  what 
ever  it  may  be,  will  do  well  to  take  notice. 


THE  END 


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LIBRARY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  DAVIS 

Book  S15p-50m-12,'64(F772B4)458 


363897 


Bancroft,  H.H. 

In  these  latter 
days. 


ACS 

BU23 
1918 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


